


Guilty Pleasure

by littlelamblittlelamb



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Angst, Dubious Consent, Extremely innaccurate portrayal of corrections facilities, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Hatred, Sexual Servitude, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24127672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelamblittlelamb/pseuds/littlelamblittlelamb
Summary: Achilles Pelides, hailing from one of the great drug trafficking families, is a god at Trojan Remand Centre ('TRC'). With enough money to bribe the guards and charm to spare, Achilles could get away with murder.When Patroclus, a peculiar murderer, transfers to TRC, it is an easy enough thing for Achilles to claim him. But uncovering the secrets of his past, is it possible Achilles's guilty pleasure isn't guilty at all?--A prison au. Dub-con and non-con in a big way. See A/N for more.
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus, Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles), Achilles/Patroclus of Opus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Noncon Patroclus/Others, Patroclus/Antilochus
Comments: 227
Kudos: 413





	1. A Live In Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> You may know me from my somewhat dark 'A Hero of Our Time' and surprisingly dark Sky High AUs. This is much worse than those.
> 
> Firstly, I need to get it off my chest that the Daddy/boy culture doesn't seem to be a thing as much anymore (if it ever was) in correctional facilities. I saw a very outdated documentary and seized it and made this horror show in its image. I say this because many people have loved ones in correctional facilities, and I need you to know that I know this is not accurate.
> 
> Secondly, there is just a lot of abuse towards Patroclus. Childhood sexual abuse (both outside and within institutions), adult rape and sex as a form of self harm occur within this fic. There are severe issues of self-worth and failures of justice. It can get very heavy.
> 
> That said, I hope you stick around.

At TRC (‘Trojan Remand Centre), Achilles Pelides, at only twenty-three years old, did well for himself; Achilles was one born to greatness, and greatness behind bars is greatness just the same. Hailing from one of the greatest drug dynasties alive, it had been a freak occurrence that Achilles had been taken in at all at nineteen – even having barely reached majority, Achilles had had a quick, meticulous mind and knack for leadership. But even the gods were not immune to undercover cops, wires, busts and snitches – a perfect storm. In the end, Achilles had picked up a measly five years for trafficking and possession – which was, all things considered, a grave miscarriage of justice and a wonderful stroke of luck.

People liked Achilles. Blonde, green-eyed, charismatic – there had always been something about him that trumpeted his golden greatness to others. Those that did not like Achilles feared him, which was just as good. Young and handsome as he was, some had considered him prey during his early days at TRC, but Achilles shut that down pretty quickly.

The new transfer, though… Achilles pushed back his yellow hair and sat up straighter from his spot under the veranda to cop a look at the fresh meat.

“Who’s that?” he asked Chiron and Philoctetes – two older prisoners who had taken him under their wings without asking him to bend over.

Chiron, a hulking bull of a man with all the insight of a philosopher, looked around. “I don’t know, but I don’t envy him.”

Philoctetes cocked his head. “Here for life, I heard. Don’t remember the name.”

“He looks like he’d be in for possession,” Achilles said. The new guy was slender and tall, with tan skin and a pretty face. The skinniness looked like heroin, and the prettiness looked like a disinclination for violence. Most of the guys in TRC were murderers or burglars, and the transfer didn’t look up to it.

Philoctetes shrugged. “I wonder if anyone will claim him.”

“You reckon someone will?” Achilles considered him. “He’s the same age as me – I was younger when I got here, and no one’s had my ass.”

“I don’t reckon he’s a fighter,” Chiron said. “You are. You’ve proved yourself. He’s not, and he might never have to prove it because it shows. He’s probably on the market for a daddy to keep him safe.”

“Yeah?” Achilles licked his lips. A lot of guys in prison had a look about them – a hard as nails, don’t fuck with me façade that, after long enough, stained the complexion. New boy didn’t have that. He looked lost – as if rather than being convicted, he had simply stumbled into maximum security. “Well, maybe I’ll introduce myself.”

* * *

“You smoke?” Achilles asked the lost looking new guy.

The man hesitated. “I… not tobacco so much.”

Achilles felt himself grin. Already the transfer blundered – the answer was always ‘yes’. Even if you don’t smoke, you smoke in prison. “Yeah? You’re like a frat boy? Just weed?”

The man took a deep, agonized breath that signaled his awareness of his failings in etiquette. “Sorry. I’d be grateful for a cigarette, if you’re offering.”

“It’s alright. I got joints too. Come.” Achilles led the boy a little way away from the rest of the rec yard and settled down on the grass. “You got a name?”

“Patroclus.”

“Patroclus,” Achilles repeated as he lit the joint and passed it to Patroclus. “I’m Achilles Pelides.”

“Ah.” Patroclus made a noise that was almost a laugh. “Sorry. I know the name – the family name. Explains why you’re game to light a joint in view of about five guards.”

There was a stillness and silence about Patroclus. Even as the other prisoners hollered and hooted about the rec yard, as Achilles watched Patroclus breathe in from a drag, his eyes half shut, his head tilted back, Achilles had the peculiar sensation that they were alone in the world.

“Y’know,” Achilles began, keen to get things established sooner rather than later, “nothing’s free around here.” Achilles gestured at the joint he had given Patroclus. Achilles had seen this go down before – Patroclus, by the look of him, was privy to proceedings as well.

A strange smile curled onto Patroclus’s lips. “Yeah?” He took another drag. “You, or someone else?”

“What?”

A flash of teeth. “I know what’s what. You, or am I for tricks?”

“Me,” Achilles muttered. “You’d be my boy.”

“Alright,” Patroclus said expressionlessly. Patroclus seemed tired, Achilles thought. Of life. Of prison. Of people. As if he was floating through a dream – nothing made sense, and nothing bothered him too much. “Me, a Pelides’s boy…”

“You been a boy before?”

“Sorry – you’re not getting a virgin,” Patroclus drawled. “But you knew that.”

“At the last place?”

“And juvie.”

“It’s not so common in juvie.”

“Not so uncommon neither.” Patroclus laughed humourlessly. “Don’t worry – I’ll be a good boy. Do what Daddy tells me.”

“I haven’t had a cellmate in a little while. I’ll get you in with me,” Achilles said.

“A live in boy…” Patroclus marveled wistfully. “Alright. That sounds alright.”

* * *

Achilles kept a tidy cell. He had a picture of his parents (a rugged, sandy haired politician type and a suave brunette), a wooden cross up on his wall, a carefully arranged shelf of books, and that was about it. Home sweet home.

“Bottom bunk’s for fucking,” Patroclus observed tonelessly after a brief inspection of the room. “You want me to take it?”

Achilles grunted noncommittedly.

“Alright.” Patroclus shrugged and sat himself down amicably on the floor.

“I didn’t mean you had to sleep on the ground,” Achilles muttered.

“Alright.”

“So fucking get up off the floor.”

Without a word, Patroclus stood back up.

“Jesus Christ. Take the bottom for now.”

Patroclus nodded and slipped into the bottom bunk, still and silent.

“Anything I should know about you?” Achilles asked.

“I don’t snore,” Patroclus offered. “I get the odd bad dream, but that’s common enough around here. Wake me, if it bugs you.”

“What’re you in for? Getting time as a minor… don’t bullshit me. I know it must be serious.”

“Jury found me guilty of two homicides.”

 _There he is._ Achilles smirked and sat himself down on Patroclus’s bunk – the designated fucking bunk. “Yeah? _Jury found me guilty…_ ” He laughed. “You still reckon you’re innocent?”

Patroclus considered this. “No. I’m not innocent.”

“You were someone’s boy in juvie?”

Patroclus glanced down. “Yeah. Guess so.”

“Guess so?”

“Someone fucked me and I got treats. So yeah.”

“You’re not giving me much.”

Patroclus seemed to be looking at something a long way off – something beyond their concrete six by eight. After a few seconds, he blinked, broke his gaze, and looked at Achilles. “You haven’t had the chance to sample what I’m offering,” he said with more than a hint of suggestion.

Achilles cracked a grin. “It sure as fuck isn’t conversation.”

“I guess not.” Patroclus knew this part, and that was apparent to Achilles. He took off his clothes without a word and sat back buck naked on the lumpy mattress. “You got something to grease me up?”

Achilles rustled around under the mattress and produced a small bottle. “Contraband.”

“Luxury.”

“You clean?” Achilles asked.

“Tested me when I came in, but nothing’s come back. Should be alright – had chlamydia a few months back, but it should be cleared up,” Patroclus said matter-of-factly.

Achilles procured a condom from his secret hideaway. “Better safe than sorry.”

Patroclus took the bottle, lubed up his fingers, and prepped himself. Patroclus understood that it was the boy’s job to stretch himself open for a whole lot of reasons. First, of course, was a lot of guys didn’t give a fuck, and wouldn’t bother. Second was that if they did, they still wouldn’t give a fuck and would do it badly. Thirdly… some daddies insisted on it so if they got caught, the boy would have it on their fingers and it wouldn’t look so much like rape. Not that the guards gave much of a fuck about that.

“You’re good at that,” Achilles remarked with a note of fondness.

“Mmm.”

“You a real fag?”

Patroclus gave no response.

“I asked you a question,” Achilles said. Patroclus paused in his ministrations and Achilles leaned in closer to him. “How old were you when you were sentenced?”

“Fifteen, Sir.”

 _Sir._ Achilles felt that in his cock.

“Had anyone fucked you before juvie?”

“No, Sir.”

“But I bet you weren’t innocent, were you? Was this hole a virgin before juvie? Never pushed anything in just to see?” Achilles asked, lubing up his own fingers and pressing into Patroclus. “Vegetables go missing from the fridge, Patroclus?”

“I might have…” Patroclus mumbled.

“I wanna know the history of this hole before I fuck it. Give me a list.”

“My fingers,” Patroclus mumbled. “Carrots. Cucumber.”

“Hurt?”

“Yeah,” Patroclus muttered. “It was too big, but I… I wanted it.” Patroclus shrugged. “Then juvie.”

“How many cocks?”

“Two.”

“At once?”

“No.”

“What were they in for?” Achilles slipped a second finger inside of Patroclus.

“The cocks?” Patroclus asked, and Achilles barked a laugh.

“Why were the cocks in juvie?” Achilles clarified.

“One was just burglary, bit of drugs…”

“The other?”

“A guard.”

Achilles hesitated. “A guard?”

“Took a liking. Told me he thought I’d been sneaking drugs in, that he’d report me, cause a fuss. Didn’t get any visitors, so I don’t know how I was meant to be sneaking drugs in. He said he’d contact my dad and get a court order for this and that or… or I could just let him do a private internal exam and be done with it. Obviously he conducted the exam with his cock, and we weren’t done with it just the once.”

“Christ.”

Patroclus shrugged. “He gave me things. Then three guys at the last place. I’ve got nothing but tumbleweeds for commissary, so I’m born for this. You want me on my back, front, or up against the wall?”

“Front.” Without the tremor of fear other boys often had, Patroclus rolled over. “Spread your cheeks.”

Without so much as a glance back, Patroclus spread his cheeks to reveal his hole.

“Did you like it?” Achilles asked.

“I guess so.”

As Patroclus moved to brace himself to get fucked, Achilles caught sight of his wrists. On the underside of each was a single, purposeful scar. Achilles felt his breath catch, but the moment passed, and he had his boy.

* * *

Patroclus was curious. Patroclus rarely spoke, but gave the impression of deep thought. He seemed every bit above the psychological games of prison, but he submitted to them, never struggled to be anything other than Achilles’s boy. He was damaged, but not erratic the way many of their fellow inmates were. Patroclus didn’t break out into rants, or pace the cell, or pick fights. Patroclus kept to himself – he spoke when spoken to, if then.

“What are you thinking about?” Achilles asked. Often they read in their bunks, but sometimes Patroclus lay still as a corpse, eyes glazed over, and Achilles couldn’t imagine what thoughts played out in his mind.

Sometimes, Patroclus only blinked in response, as if he was somewhere far away (or wanted to be). Achilles thought he was sick, maybe. There was something sad in those silences, as if Patroclus was rehearsing for death, and sometimes he would put on a stern voice and demand Patroclus answer him ( _I asked a fucking question_ ) and Patroclus would whisper, ‘Nothing’. Achilles couldn’t stand it. Sometimes he would talk compulsively at Patroclus, on days like that, just so Patroclus would engage. Sometimes he initiated sex, as if it was some fucked up Sleeping Beauty shit. But Patroclus was responsive, today.

“Blowing you,” Patroclus replied, as if it was a normal thing to think of.

“No shit?”

“Yeah. You like it?” Patroclus asked.

“Has anyone ever not liked it?” Achilles asked. Patroclus was good at sex. He gave Achilles every pleasure he could give, without getting himself off. Patroclus was a catch for his prettiness, but he was talented to boot.

“First guy. I got him with teeth,” Patroclus said.

“Fuck. He scream?”

“He smacked me,” Patroclus muttered.

“Your guard?”

“No – before. Only cock I got my hands on as a free man. Only sucked him off a few times,” Patroclus submitted. When Patroclus _did_ speak, he always spoke frankly, even about things like this. “Some guys just aren’t into blowjobs, even without teeth,” Patroclus continued. “But you like them?”

“I like them,” Achilles said. Achilles frowned, considering some of the unenthusiastic head he had endured at TRC. “I like when you do it.” Achilles peaked over the rail of his bunk to peer at Patroclus. “You would’ve been fourteen or fifteen or what?” Achilles asked.

“Around that. Guess that’s why it happened – he kept on with me because there aren’t a lot of options if you wanna fuck around with kids, and I let him because no one else wanted… wanted to do that with me.” Patroclus winced, but then broke into a bout of laughter. He did that sometimes, but it was rarely over anything humourous. “His son was my age. That’s something, isn’t it?”

_That’s something…_

It was something.

“You kill him?” Achilles asked. When Patroclus stared blankly back at him, Achilles prodded, “The guy you were blowing – he one of your murder charges?”

Patroclus laughed again, though Achilles couldn’t imagine why. “No,” he said with a terrible grin. “No, he’s alive and well.”

Sex made for a good change of topic. As Patroclus sucked him, Achilles half wondered if he wasn’t thinking of that man. Achilles was.

* * *

A day came when Patroclus was almost catatonic – he was impossibly distant, and although he seemed to hear what was said to him, he responded only with indistinguishable mumbles, as if half asleep.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Achilles asked that evening. He had never seen Patroclus in such bad shape. “Are there meds you’re not taking?”

“No,” Patroclus murmured. “’salright.”

Achilles climbed down from his bunk and crouched down by Patroclus’s head. “You get bad news or something?”

Patroclus blinked back at him.

“Sorry,” Achilles drawled. “I’m just checking for signs of life.”

Patroclus swallowed and bared his teeth in what Achilles supposed was meant to be a comforting expression. “Just tired. But I can…” With great effort, he halfway sat up in bed and looked at Achilles’s crotch.

Achilles felt himself flush – not from embarrassment per se, but something adjacent. “Fuck, I was just checking you were alive.”

Patroclus hummed in reply.

“You would just let me…?” Achilles asked.

“Mmm.”

“When you asked if I’d turn you out to other guys… would you’ve said yes to being my boy anyway?” Achilles felt as though he was kicking Patroclus while he was down, but there was a part of him that hoped maybe Patroclus might perk up and fight him.

Instead, Patroclus managed a shrug.

“I could grab someone and bring them in and you’d just let me?” Achilles probed. In a sick way, he was curious. He had raised favours over the years, but he had never had a boy the way he had Patroclus – exclusive possession.

Patroclus dropped his gaze. “If you asked…” He shrugged tiredly and winced.

Achilles watched him a while. He looked heavy and drained and lethargic. Achilles felt the strange sensation of wanting to lie down beside him just to sleep, but he thought even in his peculiar melancholic state, Patroclus would just as likely think he was after something else.

“You’re strange,” Achilles remarked, and Patroclus blinked back dumbly.

There were always days like this, in no discernable pattern. It might happen twice in a fortnight, then not again for a month. Achilles made a note of it, and sometimes pondered whether it was the days themselves that were of significance – anniversaries of deaths, birthdays of loved ones.

As he climbed back onto his bunk, he said, “I’m very particular about things. I’ll keep you to myself, if I can.”

Patroclus hummed softly in response.

* * *

One afternoon whilst alone and idle in his cell, Achilles was graced with the presence of Odysseus.

“You offer Hector a ride?” asked Odysseus. Odysseus heralded from an influential family only to marry into an even greater one. A true diplomat, he made it his business to be friendly with Achilles whilst spending as little time as possible with him. It suited Achilles just fine.

“What?”

“The tall, pretty one with the eyelashes – thought he was you boy?” Odysseus prodded.

Achilles glared up Odysseus, suddenly very conscious that Patroclus wasn’t in his cell. “Yeah. What about it?”

Odysseus frowned. “It might only be a rumour, but I heard maybe Hector had taken a turn. Wasn’t sure if you were turning him out.” Odysseus shrugged.

“You reckon he raped him, or what?” Achilles asked, trying and, he suspected, failing at appearing blasé.

“Hard to say. No commotion, but that doesn’t mean he was happy about it.”

“Right.” Achilles cracked his jaw. Hector Priamides was big and broad and Patroclus wouldn’t stand a chance if he wanted him. But Hector had a certain appeal – it was feasible that Patroclus _had_ wanted him. “Right. Thanks for the tip.” Achilles rustled into his stash and tossed Odysseus a bag of pills. “For your efforts.”

Odysseus flashed a grin. “I won’t say no.”

As Odysseus walked away, Achilles tried to name the emotion he felt in his gut. _Anger_ , he pleaded with himself. _Let it be anger_.

* * *

By the time Patroclus came back to their cell, Achilles had had time to process it, for the most part – what the others had told him. He had prepared things to say – jibes, dressings down, cutting words – but when Patroclus finally walked stiffly into the room and laid himself down on the bottom bunk, the words stuck in his throat – all except;

“Patroclus.”

It might have been a question – Achilles wasn’t sure. He needed something. He needed Patroclus to tell him it wasn’t true.

“Mmm?” Patroclus hummed.

“I heard the other guys talking shit today,” Achilles began.

“Yeah,” Patroclus said coolly. “Figured there’d be talk.”

There was an edge to his voice, and Achilles hopped off the top bunk so he could see Patroclus’s face. Patroclus didn’t give much away in his words or expression, but sometimes Achilles could piece the two together to make something of it. “You wanna say something?”

Patroclus regarded him blankly. “What’s done is done.”

“Is that how we’re playing it?”

Something flickered in Patroclus’s expression, and if Achilles wasn’t mistaken… it looked like hatred. “You can play it any way you like, Daddy. Might’ve liked some notice, is the only thing.”

“Notice?”

“That you were turning me out to other guys.” Patroclus dropped his gaze, and Achilles saw the tightness in his jaw, the hardness in his eyes, the way Patroclus drew his knees in close to his body.

“What?”

“Sorry,” Patroclus said quietly. “I just wasn’t expecting it, was all.”

“Expecting… Odysseus was saying Hector fucked you,” Achilles said slowly. “Which was news to me.”

Patroclus looked up and tilted his head. Something seemed to dawn on him. “Huh.”

“Did he?”

A dark smile crossed Patroclus’s face, and a strange, strangled laugh escaped him. “He did. Said there was some web of favours leading him to getting a slice. I guess not.”

“He fucked you?”

“Yeah.”

“And you let him?”

“I thought you’d ordered it.” Patroclus gave another unsettling laugh and Achilles shivered.

“Hector fucked you?” Achilles asked impotently. Seeing Achilles’s expression, Patroclus’s features fell back into his peculiar blank mask, and he nodded. “Strip and bend over.”

Patroclus nodded, and wordlessly did as Achilles asked.

“He hurt you,” Achilles ascertained, looking at Patroclus’s sore, angry hole.

“Most straight guys don’t spare the horses.” Patroclus pulled his pants back up and lay back. Some of the tension seemed to have left him.

“You’re pretty fucking blasé,” Achilles remarked.

“Happened hours ago.”

“Yeah. And for nothing – I thought I made it clear that you’re _my_ boy. I don’t share. Don’t know why you took Hector’s word for it and just fucking bent over.”

“You reckon I should’ve said no?” Patroclus asked with a reckless grin.

Achilles crossed his arms. “Or asked me.”

“Didn’t even occur to me that I could’ve deferred the decision – I’ll be sure to remember that. You know, when a guy twice my size tells me he has a right to fuck my ass – I’ll tell him, ‘Nah, no way, not without the Pelides stamp of approval.’ And you know, he’ll take it like a champ, dust himself off, and be on his way.”

“Ha ha.”

“Thanks. I’ll be here thirty to life.”

“It was for nothing,” Achilles growled.

“Yeah. I mean, when it was happening, I was real fucking relieved to think maybe you might’ve got some cigarettes or snacks in exchange. But now,” Patroclus drawled, “I’m devastated.”

“You give _me_ your ass in exchange for snacks,” Achilles bit.

“I give you my ass in exchange for everyone else not beating the shit out of me. Not that I don’t appreciate the weed and snacks.”

“You could do worse.”

“I know.” Patroclus scrunched his eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly until the tension left him. Achilles couldn’t help but think how unnatural it was – they were on the cusp of a good old beat down, or at least a screaming match, but Patroclus simply pulled the brakes on his emotions. “I know. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Achilles felt something stab at his gut. He hadn’t wanted an apology, and he felt shitty having got one. “Well, it’s fucking Hector who’s gonna be sorry.”

“Don’t kill him.”

“You calling the shots now?”

“I think he believed what he was saying. He mentioned Agamemnon telling him some shit about a favour and… I think he believed it. And I don’t want someone to die over it. I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.”

“Hector shouldn’t have taken Agamemnon’s word for it.”

“I guess not,” Patroclus allowed. “It’s really not… It wasn’t that bad.”

Achilles looked at Patroclus and saw that the edge he had walked in with had filed down to almost nothing. Patroclus was used to being raped, Achilles thought tiredly. He had only been upset about the betrayal.

“We’ll see. In the meantime, we’ll be getting you tested. Fucking who knows what he might have had.”

Patroclus nodded. “Alright.”

* * *

Two days later, both Agamemnon and Hector wound up in intensive care – both of them beat to bloody pulps.

“Killing each other is the only thing they didn’t manage – Christ,” the doctor remarked. Broken limbs, teeth, head injuries, cracked ribs, fractured cheeks… “And they maintain they did it to each other.” The doctor exhaled in disbelief. “They would’ve had to’ve taken it in turns kicking the other on the ground – very civilized of them.”

Hank, the accompanying guard, surrendered a shrug. “Happened in a blind spot.”

“There’s no way. Someone else was involved – I’ll tell you that.” The doctor clucked his tongue.

Hank raised his hands helplessly. “What can I say?”

Pelides money was good money.

“Well, they’ll need to go into the protection block, and probably stay there for the foreseeable if someone can do this to them and then keep them quiet about it,” said the doctor, sighing heavily.

“That sounds like a great idea, Doc.”

* * *

“Took care of Hector,” Achilles said cheerily. Patroclus glanced up from the battered, Penguin Classic orange copy of _Of Mice and Men_ he had acquired from the prison library and cocked his head.

“He alive?”

“Was when I left him. Got Agamemnon too. Both alive.”

Patroclus closed the book and sat up, his eyes oddly alert, trained on Achilles. Achilles almost pulled away when Patroclus took ahold of his hands. “Your knuckles are all busted up,” he murmured.

“You should see the other guys.”

Patroclus shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t.”

“Your ass looked about as bad as my hands. Even if you’re clean, I won’t be able to fuck you for a while.”

Patroclus winced and sat himself back down on his bunk. “How’d you know they wouldn’t die? When you were pummeling them. If you knock someone just the right way, they could die without you meaning to.”

“Like playing piano,” Achilles drawled. “Playing a man – there’s a music to fighting.”

“You play piano?” Patroclus asked.

“Believe it or not, I’m all private schooled and finished. Football scholarships and accelerated programs and piano lessons out the wazoo. Daddy wore a suit to parent teacher interviews and said he was a businessman.”

“You fight much in school?”

“It’s an irony – when you’re good at fighting, you don’t have to do it so much. Kids at school weren’t game to try their luck – but I’m not so hard to get along with either. What’s mine is mine.”

“And if someone tried to take something from you?”

“Then I would punish them.”

“Why not just take it back? Why hurt them?” Achilles looked at Patroclus with an expression Patroclus had long since learned to divine – the raise of his eyebrows and quirk of his mouth and jut of his chin all seemed to say, _Are you a fucking moron?_ Patroclus nodded absently, before wetting some toilet paper and approaching Achilles. “Do you mind if I…?” Patroclus gestured at Achilles’s bloody hands.

“Most of the blood isn’t mine, you know.”

Patroclus shrugged, and dabbed away at the blood, cleaning the small cuts he had acquired. “I was never any good for fights – even before everything else. Never started them, never finished them.”

A lot of guys in prison were bullies, but not particularly skilled fighters. Patroclus seemed to be neither. Achilles shrugged roughly. “Well, you killed two people.”

Patroclus’s fingers stilled for a second, and Achilles wondered if the boy who committed double homicide might show his face, but the moment passed and Patroclus carried on. “You can kill people without fighting.”

Achilles rolled his eyes. “Right – thanks, Lennie.”

Patroclus grinned brightly, glancing at his novel and back at Achilles’s hand. “Were you sad when Lennie died?”

“You’re meant to be.”

Patroclus nodded, pulling away the damp toilet paper stained red with Hector and Agamemnon and Achilles’s blood. “I was the first time I read it. I’m not, now. His death was inevitable because it was right – if you try to be good and you still hurt people, the best thing is for you to be put down, maybe.”

“You reckon all these guys should be put down?” Achilles asked. “Most of our block are killers.”

“No. If they’re killers and they meant to be, maybe they can change. Or maybe they’re exactly what they want to be, and will pay the life debts with time and do it all again. At least there’s meaning and purpose, there. Killing by accident – because you don’t know better or can’t do better… in murder cases, you always hear about lives being cut short needlessly, but really they’re cut short one-sidedly – one person wanted the outcome… Sorry. I’ve gone in a circle.”

Patroclus threw the soiled paper in the toilet and flushed it away.

“I understand. I think you’re wrong, but I think I understand.” Achilles took Patroclus’s hand and slid the cuff of Patroclus’s shirt up his wrist to reveal the scarred skin. “Before the trial, or…?”

“Juvie – just before I was meant to be transferred to a men’s facility. Convinced the guard to give me a proper razor so I could shave for him – not like the anti-shank ones from commissary. Didn’t die, and got put on a protection block when they transferred me.”

“It’s a shitty way of trying,” Achilles said.

“First thing the other guys did when they saw the scars was tell me that only teenaged girls slit their wrists – which made sense, given I’m a fag and all.”

“You wanted the death penalty? From my understanding, it’s one of those ironic things like me and fights –if you ask for it, they won’t give it to you.”

Something wavered in Patroclus’s eyes, as if he was fighting not to snatch his hand away. But he was obedient, and remained perfectly still. “I begged until the end that I didn’t mean to do it. I was young, though – I only thought I shouldn’t be labelled a murderer; I only thought about what I wasn’t. I didn’t stop to think about what I was, and what I deserved.”

“And what are you?”

It was like a trick of the light – the disgust and pain that threatened to envelop Patroclus’s face. Achilles wanted to take ahold of Patroclus’s pain, stick a pin through it like an insect and examine it – but it kept flying away. Patroclus banished it for good with a strange smile. “I’m your boy,” he murmured. Patroclus adjusted their connected hands so his thumb slid affectionately over Achilles’s swollen, angry knuckles. “And I’m lucky to have you to keep me safe. Results won’t be back awhile, but my mouth should be alright.”

Achilles hesitated, tried to formulate a response, but as Patroclus maneuvered him onto the bottom bunk and pulled out his cock, Achilles realized there had been no question. He released a sigh and closed his eyes. Patroclus was fucked up, Achilles thought, but he was pretty and interesting and good with his mouth, so Achilles let things be.


	2. Escape Attempt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patroclus attempts an escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> I was glad to see some people enjoyed this fic. Hopefully it's all sutured together alright - sometimes I worry my writing is too choppy.
> 
> I usually dislike it when authors do this, but there are some references to East of Eden (also by Steinbeck). It's largely alluded to, but I've explained the reference in the end notes if you need.
> 
> I've also placed a cw in the end notes (it's in the tags as well). As someone who is appallingly morbid, I prefer not to get warnings beyond tags, but if anything in the tags has you unsettled, check the end notes.
> 
> Thanks <3

Achilles had been right, when he said he wasn’t so hard to get along with. Or, Patroclus thought so. Achilles was bossy and expected to be obeyed, but he was enough a leader to carry it off – Patroclus found he appreciated the directness. Achilles had a circle of guys he occasionally consulted – getting drugs into prison required some degree of cavorting, and Achilles never implemented Patroclus in it.

“That’s not what you’re for,” Achilles had said, puzzled when Patroclus questioned if he needed any help in his ventures.

“Alright,” Patroclus replied. He was glad, he supposed. He had done it a couple of times at the last place – seen a visitor he had never met, swallowed balloons full of dope and had to throw them back up after he returned to his cell. It was peculiar – his body was grateful for Achilles’s benevolence, but he felt strangely useless.

People kept their distance from Patroclus, now that he was Achilles’s boy. For Achilles, people existed to be summoned and dismissed, and a lot of their time was spent together in a peaceful quiet, punctuated by the odd aimless questions that came of proximity. Speaking to Achilles, it became obvious that he was well-educated – he spoke fondly of books he had read, and ran into the occasional tangent about historical battles (he delighted in tyranny and carnage the way a toddler enjoys crashing toy racecars). It occurred to Patroclus that he himself was _not_ well-educated – he had halfheartedly finished his education at juvie, and regularly fell into slumps where he found he couldn’t read or write or think anything much.

“Have you read _East of Eden_?” Achilles asked, after a half hour of silence in their cell. Their last conversation had been about the size of horse cocks, and how there was some video of a guy having his bowel punctured by a horse fucking him. The conversation before that had been about the role of the Enlightenment in the French Revolution. Before that, Achilles had warned him off heroin, but coke, weed and acid were pretty alright ( _If you want any, you just gotta ask_ ). There was little rhyme or reason to conversation with Achilles, but if he wanted it, Patroclus was happy to engage.

“Not yet.”

“You remind me a bit of Tom Hamilton, maybe, more than Lennie.”

“Mm?”

“Lennie was simple, but you aren’t. Tom was smart and cool and grappled with greatness, but he made a mistake,” Achilles said simply, before frowning.

“What’d he do?” Patroclus asked curiously.

“That’d spoil it,” Achilles replied.

“He end up dead?”

Achilles’s frown set deeper. “Never mind.”

“You got me curious.”

“Then read it.”

“I might not get around to it.”

Achilles barked a laugh. “What’ve we got but time?”

Patroclus smiled at that. He had even more time, now that he was with Achilles. It wasn’t just the inmates who left him alone – Hank turned a blind eye to all of Achilles’s comings and goings, and Patroclus was an extension of Achilles. When Achilles left to meet with Odysseus or Chiron or Philoctetes, Patroclus truly felt alone.

 _You could do it now,_ he would think. _He’s left you alone, and you could get it done._

Patroclus was good with bargaining the thought away.

_I don’t know when he’ll get back._

_I might fuck it up._

_He already said he wanted to fuck tonight – can’t leave him high and dry._

_Finish your book – then you can do it._

He didn’t finish _East of Eden_ before he did it, in the end. He got up to Tom riding into the wilderness with his gun after posting his letter to Will.

“Do you have a class tonight?” Patroclus asked quietly, setting the book down one evening.

“Yeah, lawyer says to go to the stupid drug talks – looks good to collect certificates, or whatever.” Achilles shrugged. “You wanna come?”

“Do you want me to?” Patroclus asked, and maybe Achilles would do the bargaining for him.

Achilles rolled his eyes. “Seriously fucking boring. I dunno… nah. Stay. But be ready for me when I come back, alright.”

Achilles came over to his bunk to kiss him on the cheek before he left. He did that, sometimes – like a joke, maybe. Like Patroclus was his boy-wife. But Patroclus also thought he did it because Patroclus sometimes tensed when Achilles kissed him on the mouth, and Achilles cared about things like that. Patroclus felt totally at ease as Achilles pressed his lips against his jaw.

“See you tonight,” Achilles whispered.

Patroclus took his hand before he turned to go, and kissed Achilles lightly on the mouth. “Thank you,” he said.

Achilles beamed at him.

 _Do it tonight,_ he thought, the second the door closed behind Achilles. _It has to be tonight._

Patroclus wasn’t sure he was any Tom Hamilton, but he wished he was – hoped he could be. Tom was noble and proud, maybe. Patroclus had never been able to cultivate pride too much.

“Yes,” Patroclus acquiesced. “Yes, tonight.”

* * *

There was a punch up in the programs room, and the whole block was going to code any minute – that was why Achilles wandered back to the cells after only half an hour. Everything was going to be cancelled and it would be a cozy night in, and Achilles didn’t half mind. Patroclus had been almost sweet with him the past week, and Achilles appreciated it. Some of the guys had gotten into a program where they were allowed a pet cat, and they went crazy for the things – worshipped them, practically. Patroclus reminded Achilles of those cats – just as the cats lay on their masters for hours only for warmth, Patroclus kept him company and answered his questions and made offerings of his body, only for security. But it felt _good._ Achilles could never admit it, but he wanted to worship Patroclus’s body – to lap him up and hold him. And that kiss… Achilles grinned to himself.

But then Hank, the guard who had been waddling up ahead of Achilles, cried out and moved frantically to unlock a cell. Achilles’s cell.

By the time Achilles got there, Hank was propping up a purpling, unconscious Patroclus to get some slack in the bedsheet which tied him to the top bunk.

“Patroclus?” Achilles heard himself ask.

“Jesus…” Hank muttered. “Jesus. Fuck. Pelides, could you lift him. I’ve gotta cut him down.”

Achilles blinked. His body seemed to have flicked over to manual – he had to tell himself to breathe, to put one foot in front of the other. Achilles grabbed ahold of Patroclus while Hank cut Patroclus down.

“I’ll do CPR,” Hank said quietly, before issuing instructions over his radio.

It was a strange thing, watching Hank perform CPR on Patroclus – it was an intimate act. Hank pumped down on Patroclus’s chest, and Achilles wondered that it didn’t break – Patroclus was bony. Achilles often worried about that, when they fucked. Hank’s lips pressed into Patroclus’s to breathe into him, and if Patroclus was dying, it seemed bizarre that Hank might kiss him and Achilles could not. Abruptly, he stopped.

“Keep going,” Achilles demanded coldly. “Why the fuck’ve you stopped?”

“He’s breathing.” Hank turned Patroclus gently on his side. “Weakly. Your friend has probably injured his neck, and I wouldn’t rule out brain damage. He also might die – I’m not telling you that to be an asshole, I’m telling you so you don’t lose it if he goes out of here alive and dies later on. You understand?”

Achilles stared, his blood icy in his veins. He shuddered. “My dad has money,” he mumbled weakly. “If money can help, I have enough.”

Hank, who was one of the few guards capable of it, offered Achilles an empathetic smile as the medics rushed in. “It’s just time, now. Time and chance.”

* * *

Patroclus was gone for three weeks. Achilles had been in prison three years, but he would’ve sworn those weeks passed more slowly than a year. Those weeks felt like waiting – watching clocks and chatting up guards and trying not to kill any guy who looked twice at him. Then, one day, Patroclus was back as if he’d never left – as if he had never tried to leave.

“Hi.”

It was 6am. Prisons love an early transport. Achilles blinked awake and stared.

“Changed cells,” Patroclus observed, his voice strange and hoarse.

“Hadta fight Hank about putting you in protection, but I still thought maybe we shouldn’t have bunks.”

“I could always use the bars,” Patroclus croaked with a glint of teeth, before he settled himself on the other bed.

“Fuck you.” Silence reigned, and Achilles felt anger boil up inside him at the thought that Patroclus might just roll over and fall asleep and consider killing himself another day in their shared room. “Your voice is fucked.”

“From the intubation,” Patroclus said. “It comes and goes.”

“Hank said you might be brain damaged.”

“I might be.”

“Fucking _are you_?”

A lot of guys were brain damaged at TRC. A lot of guys lived fast and didn’t die young. But Patroclus seemed quick, and odd only as he had been before.

“No. I was lucky that way. Neck’s sore, but I don’t need a collar. Would’ve come back that night if I could.”

“You were out for three weeks.”

“Psych ward.” Patroclus lay perfectly still in bed and spoke hollowly. “But I can manage them.”

“Bet you’ve had some fucking practice,” Achilles spat venomously.

“Yep.”

“Wonder they ever let you out.”

Patroclus hummed a soft laugh. “There’s a trick,” Patroclus offered. “When the doctor asks you why you’re having these feelings, tell her it’s because you’ve got thirty to life. They tell you you’re sane, more or less, and to go on your way.”

“Is that the reason?” Achilles asked. If that was the reason, Patroclus was terminal. Hanging is a reliable method of getting the job done, and if it was a matter of Patroclus trying until it worked, he would succeed within a few months.

“It’s a good enough reason.” Patroclus shrugged tiredly. “I’m a killer, and I’ll never get out, and the only thing keeping me from gagging up balloons or beaten is the fact that I make for a good boy.”

“You’re my boy, and I treat you well,” Achilles said quietly. “I look after you. No one else touches you. The reason you got time to try anything at all is that I tip the guards to leave us alone. If you wanted a phone, I’d get you a phone. If you wanted dope, I could get you dope.”

“It’s not your fault,” Patroclus said kindly.

“I know,” Achilles said. “Because I’m fucking good to you.”

“You are,” Patroclus said softly. “You’re good to me, Achilles, and I’m grateful –”

“It was pretty fucking ungrateful to… to do that.”

“I wasn’t meaning to be. I just wanted to be gone. You’re good to me,” Patroclus said soothingly, “and you make being in here easier, but you can’t make it good. Why I’m here, who I am … I’m grateful, but it’s still… it’s still what it is.” Patroclus sighed. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Fuck you,” Achilles muttered, and they pretended to sleep until breakfast.

* * *

Patroclus sat on the sidelines as they finished up a game of basketball. Achilles was a good fighter, and hailed from a powerful family, but likely the majority of the respect he held among the other inmates was due to his athleticism on the court. Achilles was impossibly fast and strategic, and Patroclus didn’t mind watching him play. He probably would have even if it wasn’t expected of him, as Achilles’s boy.

“You never wanna play?” Achilles asked, wiping sweat from his brow. Achilles watched him, now more than even before; before, Achilles had assumed he would follow after him like a good boy. Now he seemed unsure, as if Patroclus might wander off and get into trouble like with Hector, or start tying knots in bedsheets.

“Wouldn’t be appropriate,” Patroclus said.

“It would be fine.”

“Wouldn’t make it alright.”

Patroclus needed protection, but not because the other prisoners hated him – not per se. Patroclus made himself agreeable and never picked fights, and was kind. It was the kindness that undid him, probably. Kindness can be hard to understand, and it can make you feel vulnerable and open, and no one wants to feel that in prison. Beating Patroclus was like beating away softness; a way of feeling hard and strong. Patroclus needed protection from fights and fucks, and it wouldn’t be right for Achilles’s protected boy to play ball with the big kids.

Patroclus didn’t say any of this, but stood up and waited for Achilles to lead him to wherever they were going.

“Well, you can if you want.”

“Thank you.”

Patroclus had doubled down on the ‘thank you’s since getting back from the psych ward. Achilles wanted gratitude, and Patroclus was grateful, and it was an easy thing to give him. It wasn’t necessarily working, but it was something Patroclus could do, so he did it.

“I want a fuck,” Achilles grunted. He was about to lead the way when he froze. “Did you just fucking roll your eyes?”

Patroclus blinked. He had. “Sorry.”

“You don’t wanna fuck?” Achilles asked – and weirdly, it sounded like he was actually asking.

“It’s not that.” Patroclus winced. He had never lied to Achilles. There had been omissions, but Patroclus wasn’t a liar. “You’re sweaty.”

Achilles stood frozen for a few seconds, his brows knitted.

“Sorry,” Patroclus said again.

“I can shower,” Achilles said decisively. “Would you like it better, if I showered?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I can shower,” Achilles repeated easily. Then, with a hint of sternness, “And you can fucking come watch or join me.”

Patroclus didn’t get a lot of time alone, these days. But he supposed he earned that – Patroclus had tried to take something of Achilles’s, and he deserved to be punished for it.

* * *

“You never cum when we fuck,” Achilles murmured that night after lights out.

“I don’t need it.”

“You cum later, sometimes. You jerk off.”

“I do.”

Patroclus always answered Achilles’s queries, and Achilles was glad for it, but sometimes his answers were garbage.

“I thought you liked cock.”

“I do.”

“Just not mine?” Achilles asked.

“Your cock’s a great cock,” Patroclus offered.

“But you don’t wanna cum on it.” Achilles found it easier to talk this way – in darkness. In the light of day, Patroclus hid his expressions, kept his body slack and gestureless. At least in pitch black, Achilles could imagine Patroclus thinking and feeling their conversation. “It’s like I’m raping you, sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.”

The apology came just as Patroclus’s ‘thank you’s came; immediately and robotically. Patroclus always seemed to tell him the truth, and that had always pleased Achilles, but Achilles often wondered if this wasn’t because Patroclus was so uninvested in his own existence that the truth – good or bad or dire – couldn’t hurt him anymore.

“You’re not raping me,” Patroclus supplied, when Achilles stayed silent.

“How would I fucking know?”

“I’m responsive,” Patroclus murmured. “I don’t just lie there –”

“You take a pro-active approach to getting me to finish quicker,” Achilles snapped. “To get it over and done with.”

“It’s not that.”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to like it. I want you to enjoy it. I appreciate what you do for me.”

“Whereas I’m an asshole who doesn’t give a fuck – who doesn’t want you to fucking… to fucking feel alright?” Achilles managed. He felt weak. Something about Patroclus made him weak.

“It bothers you?” Patroclus asked clinically.

“You fucking think?” Achilles snapped. “No. You know what – forget it. Fuck you.”

“I don’t want to cum. With you or anyone. I think it would feel bad, if I did. So if it helps, I like not cumming better than cumming. I enjoy that I don’t have to.”

“Why?” Achilles asked, aware he was pushing it.

“I don’t know,” Patroclus murmured. Then, to Achilles’s surprise, “The guard in juvie made me, a couple of times. I always felt worse when I did.”

“Was he your first?”

“Yeah. Baptism by fire, huh.”

“What’s his name?”

“It’s a common first name, and we didn’t get surnames. So your family’s hitman would end up having to take out two or three guys, probably.”

“I like that your mind went there.”

“I know yours did.”

“He’s probably still fiddling boys, you know.”

“Some of them probably deserve it,” Patroclus muttered.

Achilles almost called Patroclus on that one. Achilles hadn’t, but plenty of the other guys had been touched up whilst in the system, or even at home. Whatever else the guys thought about politics and women and kids these days, Achilles would bet that none thought it was alright for juvie guards to rape teenagers. But Achilles realized what Patroclus had really meant.

“You didn’t,” Achilles said to the night. No response came, and Achilles let it go. Making a person answer – or making a person cum – when they don’t want to can be cruel, and Achilles didn’t want to be cruel to Patroclus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * East of Eden reference --> Tom Hamilton is said to 'grapple with greatness' and is going through a period of depression. His similarly depressed sister moves in with him, and there seems to be a promise that they can live happily together when she begins to feel unwell. He treats her with salt, but it's alluded to that it was her appendix (the salt would have only made it worse), and by the time he runs for a doctor, it's fatal. He posts a letter to his brother explaining that he should help cover up his suicide as an accident with an unruly horse, and kills himself out of guilt. Achilles is framing it was a compliment (that Patroclus is someone capable of greatness who has likely made a mistake,) but it dawns on him as he's saying it that Tom ended up killing himself, and sort of backpedals.
> 
> **CW --> Suicide attempt by hanging.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Again, comments are the best part of my isolation life <3


	3. Pruno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celebration and consolation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Here's another chapter.
> 
> 'Pruno' is alcohol brewed in prisons - a crude wine that is said to taste pretty disgusting. Up until less than a hour ago I referred to it as 'moonshine' in this chapter (which has sort of a romantic ring to it), but upon further research, that term was generally inaccurate.

One morning, Achilles threw three full sized candy bars and five joints onto Patroclus’s bed, and Patroclus knew.

“Hank fucking told you,” he said wearily.

“Told me what?” Achilles asked, feigning nonchalance as he turned to make his own bed.

“You know. You _know_. I know you know –”

“Alright.” Achilles threw his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, Hank told me. Yesterday, by the way – the asshole. Some fucking notice. Won’t make a big deal of it – just something to do. Ajax might have some pruno tonight, so there’s that too.”

“I don’t like celebrating it.”

“We’re not celebrating it, and I haven’t told anyone else. We’re just… acknowledging it.” Achilles glanced up to see Patroclus frowning at his bounty. “Jesus. What happened to ‘thank you’?”

“Thank you,” Patroclus said mechanically.

Achilles sighed. “Consider it a birthday, or a reprieve, or another fucking day. Whatever. You have candy, weed, maybe booze tonight, and we don’t have to fuck. So happy fucking birthday.”

“Alright.”

“Alright,” Achilles echoed.

* * *

“Hank gonna let us smoke tonight?” Patroclus asked, taking another swig of pruno. They had drunk some with Ajax and Odysseus, but Ajax had made it a little too clear that he would be open to doing more trade in pruno if Achilles let him have a go with Patroclus. Ajax had received a few thinly veiled threats, and let Achilles walk away with more than enough for him and Patroclus to swig in their own cell.

“Yeah. Won’t let us make a habit of it, but if we don’t leave contraband laying around after the fact, he’ll keep quiet.”

“Good.” Patroclus’s voice had a dreaminess about it. They weren’t _so_ deep into the pruno, but a thought occurred to Achilles.

“You’ve not drunk much, have you? I mean, in your life.”

Patroclus looked at him and offered a smile. “No. You can always get it in prison, but nothing’s free. Not had many chances.”

“Yeah?”

“Tony used to give me some, sometimes. Bring vodka in a water bottle, that type of thing. Said it made me easy.”

“Easy?”

“A slut.”

“Tony did?”

“In juvie.”

“The guard?”

Patroclus scrunched up his eyes and shook his head. “Forget that, please.”

“I’m sending my hitman after a man named Tony, huh?” Achilles said with a grin – almost as if he was joking.

“Don’t kill Tony. There are too many Tonys – they’ll get it wrong.”

“You’ll have to describe him.”

“Curly red hair. Handlebar moustache. Eye patch,” Patroclus said with a laugh.

“Cute.” Patroclus, Achilles thought, was definitely getting there. What’s more, Patroclus was much chattier after a few. “I’ll grab the lighter.”

Patroclus made no qualms about sitting in close on Achilles’s single bed and sharing a joint and the pruno. Their sides touched, and Achilles liked that.

“Good birthday?” Achilles asked.

Patroclus took a drag, then released. “Best one for ages. Thanks.”

“Would’ve done something better if Hank had’ve let me know earlier,” Achilles mumbled, taking a swig.

“No. It was good as it gets.”

Achilles barked a laugh. “Candy, watching me play ball, getting come onto by Ajax, then getting wasted in a cell? Not high up there.”

“Better than my birthdays before.”

“That’s fucking tragic.”

“It was.” Patroclus took a few gulps and grimaced at the flavor.

“Your family write or call?”

“The lack of commissary didn’t tip you off?” Patroclus asked.

“Thought maybe they were just poor.”

“Nah. Pretty well off, actually. Dad cut me off.”

“Before or after?”

“The money cut off after. Everything else, quite a while before. And can you blame him?”

Achilles shrugged. “Fathers in general have a lot to answer for in here, I imagine. It’s on me, but I wouldn’t have taken a fall trafficking drugs if my father wasn’t in that world.”

“He frame you?” Patroclus asked, tilting his head.

“No. I did it. But I was doing it because it was the family business. I’m not stupid – I did it because I wanted to, and I wanted the money – but it felt like the corner of the world that had been carved out for me. If that makes sense.”

“I guess.” Patroclus hesitated, and Achilles saw he was a little less focused, a touch incoherent. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

“I’ve never been charged for it.”

Patroclus laughed and bumped lightly into Achilles’s shoulder. “How did it feel?”

“Surprisingly easy. I think you have to be selfish to be able to do it. Psychopaths care only about themselves, maybe. I’m not that, but I care about me and a couple of people, but I’d kill the rest without too much of a problem. You don’t do selfishness well,” Achilles murmured. “So you’re a bad killer.”

Patroclus stared at the ceiling before shaking his head. He seemed to consider something, before placing a hand on the front of Achilles’s pants. “You want to?”

“You have the night off.”

“You’re hard.”

“That doesn’t mean much.”

“No birthday candles. Gives me something to blow,” Patroclus said with a strange smile.

“I can grab the lighter.”

“Or I can grab your cock. Please, Daddy. You gonna make me beg?”

It was sick – Achilles knew that much. Patroclus was more of a lightweight than Achilles had imagined, and this undoubtedly played into something about Tony and his dad and whatever sent him to prison in the first place, but Achilles couldn’t help thinking rejecting him would only make things worse and not better.

“Alright.”

It was different. Patroclus was looser, _easier_. He was always good and attentive, but this night… a little sloppy, Patroclus seemed to want it, crave it, made little sounds to articulate his need. Locking eyes, Patroclus almost seemed blissful. The end came too quickly.

“Christ,” Achilles muttered as Patroclus lapped him up. “Shit. Fuck.”

Patroclus licked his lips and tentatively pressed them against Achilles’s. It wasn’t that they never kissed – maybe straight guys didn’t spare the horses, but Achilles wasn’t straight, and making love to a man didn’t terrify him. He often sucked Patroclus’s flesh and peppered kisses over his body. Kisses on the mouth were, however, rare, and they never felt like this; never lasted so long, never felt unbearably warm, or as if Patroclus liked it.

“Patroclus,” Achilles said, because he could not think what else to say.

“Please,” he begged, straddling Achilles’s lap, his hard cock pressing into Achilles’s abdomen.

“Do you want me to…?”

“No,” Patroclus said, snaking his own hand down the front of his trousers and stroking. He tilted his face into Achilles and melted into him, all lips and tongue and a need to not think. As he came, he made a sound like a sob and lay down on Achilles’s chest. When he caught his breath, he said, “I used to imagine maybe you might help me, but maybe you’d care.”

“Huh?”

Patroclus sighed, his breath hot on Achilles’s skin. “Like George and Lennie… I don’t think you’ll kill me.”

“No,” Achilles agreed. “I don’t think I will.”

* * *

Achilles passed on basketball the next day, and suggestive hoots and whistles called after him as he led Patroclus to a spot of grass near the fence.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Patroclus said.

Achilles shrugged. “I’m not.”

“I crossed the line.”

“The line’s moved.”

“I don’t want it to.” Patroclus hugged his knees to his chest and avoided Achilles’s gaze. “I don’t want there to be too many attachments. I’m your boy, and that’s good.”

“I want to talk about –”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Achilles sighed and leaned back. Patroclus never made it simple. “Then just listen. I won’t kill you. The other guys know better than to kill you. When I’m not around, the guards know to do checks on our cell regularly. You won’t be dying anytime soon.”

“Alright.”

“Alight.” Achilles raked his hand through his hair. “I want more.”

“More?”

“Of you. I want as much as I can get,” Achilles surrendered. “I don’t feel like that’s crazy. I give you stuff, protection – whatever. But I give you me as well. It’s going both ways.”

“You don’t want me,” Patroclus said to his hands. “You just don’t know. But if you knew… you wouldn’t…”

“You killed two people. I know –”

“Do you?” Patroclus asked harshly. “Do you know what I did?”

“I’m waiting for you to tell me. Y’know – if that’s on the cards. I want to hear it from you. If you can’t say it… This isn’t a threat, Patroclus, but if you can’t say it and don’t mind me knowing, I have other ways of finding out. But I want you to tell me.” Achilles picked up Patroclus’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “If we were out there, I’d be wining and dining you – fucking you in hotels, taking you out in my cars, introducing you to Daddy. You’re someone I’d want more of.”

“I’m not.” Patroclus sat eerily still, his breaths slow and controlled. “I’m your boy. That’s what I’m good for.”

Achilles felt himself deflate. “Well, I’ll be trying for it. More. You can say no, and I’ll listen, but that’s what I want.”

“Alright.”

“Alright,” Achilles said.

* * *

It was a week before Patroclus managed to get away without Achilles or Hank on his tail. A week of Achilles fucking him gently, kissing him, lying with him after the fact. It made Patroclus feel disgusting. He felt like he was lying, and Achilles needed to know the truth. Patroclus could show him.

“Ajax,” Patroclus began. “Pelides was interested in some more pruno.”

Ajax was 6’6 of hulking muscle, but had an IQ of about 80. It was nasty of Patroclus to do this, but Patroclus was nasty. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Pelides can talk about what he wants to trade sometime, y’know. He can offer up something like everyone else.”

The funny thing was, Ajax probably would have surrendered a bottle for free if Patroclus leaned on Achilles’s name a little harder. But Patroclus wasn’t there for the bottle. “Am I not sufficient?”

“You?”

“You seemed up for it the other day.”

Ajax licked his lips and glanced down. If Odysseus had have been there, he would have thrown Patroclus out on his ass before Ajax could even consider it – he would have remembered what happened to Hector. But Ajax was trusting and horny. “He offering?”

“I’m good for it,” Patroclus said, skirting around the lie.

“Well, alright.”

Patroclus wanted it to hurt, which was why he pressed his lips lightly against Ajax’s mouth and waited. Ajax didn’t disappoint – not a second later, Ajax shoved him back and socked him in the mouth. Patroclus tasted blood as victory.

“I dunno what Pelides gets you to do, but I hate the taste of faggot,” Ajax growled.

Patroclus wiped his lips. “Sorry.”

“Against the wall,” Ajax muttered.

Patroclus braced himself against the wall and waited. He didn’t know why the tears still came, after so many years. It seemed like something he should have been able to control. He figured it was like bleeding, maybe. Blood seeped in his mouth and tears fell out of his eyes, and none of it meant anything much.

Patroclus took the pruno back to his cell, and started on it without Achilles.

* * *

By the time Achilles returned to their cell, Patroclus was drowsy and dizzy from drink. Achilles noticed that, but not before he saw the split lip.

“The fuck is that?” Achilles asked, pulling up beside Patroclus’s bed and grabbing his jaw to get a better look.

“Nothing,” Patroclus croaked.

“I’ll rephrase; Who the fuck did that?”

“I did.”

“You fucking did not. Jesus… I won’t kill him – I didn’t kill Hector. I can’t have them thinking they can touch what’s mine.” Achilles blinked, making some sense of the scene. “Pruno… Ajax?”

“I invited him to… I got us a bottle,” Patroclus murmured.

“You fuck him?”

“Yeah. Said he could.”

“ _You_ said he could?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d he hit you?”

“Kissed him.”

“Why’d you kiss him?”

Patroclus smiled blearily. “So he’d hit me.”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ.”

“I’m not what I pretend to be,” Patroclus murmured. “You can’t believe anything I say. I’m manipulative – always have been. Manipulative fag.”

“You need help.”

“I need to be put down.”

“Maybe.” Achilles shook his head. “He fuck your ass?”

“Wanna see?”

“No. We’ll get you tested tomorrow. Fucking Christ.” Achilles sat by the head of Patroclus’s bed and picked up the bottle, taking a generous sip. “This because I like you?”

“You can’t.”

“Tell me about the murders, Pat,” Achilles urged him gently. “Tell me about them, so I can tell you I don’t give a fuck – not because I’m generous, but because I’m selfish. Tell me you robbed some sweet old lady and killed her on accident, or shook a baby or buried a sibling alive. Tell me anything, and I’ll tell you that I don’t fucking care.”

Patroclus stared at him tiredly, and gave a minute nod. “It was… it was a boy my age, and my mom.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmm. Story is I came onto the boy and bullied him, probably sexually assaulted him. Then we got into a scuffle and I shoved him into a rock. And my mom…” Patroclus laughed miserably. “As I awaited trial, the psychopath son I am, I pushed my own mother down the stairs and killed her. Dad felt so guilty – they’d been covering for me for years, pretending I was normal, propping up the façade. But they were scared for their lives – locked me in my room every night just to feel safe. That night, they forgot to lock me in, and it happened.”

“That’s it?” Achilles asked.

“Mmm. Jury believed him.”

“Who?”

“My dad. But I…” Patroclus shook his head and stared at the ceiling. “I killed the boy. He was the mayor’s son, and… We were in the woods near my house and he stole a pair of fucking dice and I… I pushed him, and he died. I didn’t mean to…” Patroclus shook his head side to side. “I… The boy – Clyde – used to bully _me_. Used to call me a fag and whatever else. Then his friends came forward with that – that I was a fag, and Clyde seemed to hate me for it, and it morphed into… they wondered if I hadn’t made a move or tried something and killed him to keep him quiet…” Patroclus winced. “Then my dad jumped onto it. The whole investigation… I had years worth of good report cards and teachers liked me, but Dad said that was all a lie – that at home I was feral, out of control. The lock on the door… but that was just to punish me. They weren’t afraid, I would never…”

“Did you kill your mom?” Achilles asked.

“No,” Patroclus whispered. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if she fell by accident or on purpose, or if Dad pushed her. But I didn’t… it wasn’t me. I pushed Clyde, and I didn’t mean for him to die.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Thanks for telling me.” It was a lot to consider; Patroclus was serving a sentence for two murders, but he had barely committed manslaughter. Achilles could work with that. “I believe you.”

Patroclus jolted. “No.”

“No?”

“You can’t.” Patroclus shook his head from side to side. “I’m a liar. I’m bad.”

“I don’t care –”

“No,” Patroclus croaked. “No, no. God – you can’t… please. No, no, no… I deserve this. I must deserve this. I must be bad. I… Ajax. I… I tricked him to…”

“I know –”

“I’m… you can’t believe me. If I’m not bad, it doesn’t make any sense. Tony and before and being here and Dad and thirty to life… I must be bad.” There were tears in Patroclus’s eyes as he begged Achilles to tell him exactly what his father had told the jury years ago; that he was a manipulative, evil little faggot who deserved everything he got in prison – that it would only be a shame that he would _enjoy_ it.

“You killed that boy,” Achilles settled. “And that begs penance. You’ve done that. I get out in a bit over a year. We’re gonna see if we can’t bring it down to manslaughter, time served.”

“No,” Patroclus rasped. “Just kill me when you go. Just… just help me get it done, and it’ll be fine.”

“I can’t do that. I’m sorry – I can’t.” Achilles ran his fingers over Patroclus’s hair. “You’ve never lied to me. Say you meant to kill them, and I’ll believe you, but if one was an accident and you had nothing to do with the other, I’ll be seeing about it, Pat.”

Patroclus stared at him like a drowning man. “I didn’t mean to… but I’m bad. I know I am.”

Achilles laughed dryly. “Well, that isn’t a lie, maybe, but you’re wrong. I don’t think you’re bad even a bit.”

“You won’t…” Patroclus shivered. “You won’t hurt Ajax?”

“You told him he could?” Achilles affirmed.

Patroclus nodded vigorously, as drunk men do. “Yeah. I did – I tricked him –”

“I won’t hurt him on account of fucking you. But whether you’re my boy or my boyfriend, you’re still mine, and no one gets to hit you. So he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

“I… It was my fault,” Patroclus mumbled.

“He took the bait. Patroclus – you’re always honest with me, and I really like that. I should return the favour and inform you that while I’m good to you, I’m not the good guy.” From his spot on the ground by the head of Patroclus’s bed, Achilles leaned in close and tucked a tuft of hair away from Patroclus’s eyes. “Maybe when I get out of here, I’ll move to legitimate pastures… but I’ll still want the same things; I’ll still want money and power and a good fucking life, and you don’t get those things without cutting some throats.”

Patroclus blinked slowly, and a serenity came over him. “Do you forgive me?” he asked.

Achilles almost laughed it off. “Yes,” he said carefully. “I forgive you.”

“Then I forgive you.”

Achilles wasn’t totally sure what the forgiveness was for – why Patroclus offered it to him, or what sin he had absolved Patroclus of. But it meant something, and he felt freer having given and received it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're enjoying this fic. Comments make my week!


	4. Daddy Issues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Achilles and Patroclus get to know each other a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Usual warnings for this chapter - nothing beyond the tags, but it can be confronting.
> 
> This chapter is overly talky and a little slow, which I apologise for. 
> 
> I also think this is probably just over the halfway mark of this fic, so the end is in sight, and I hope you all stick around <3

Achilles held him, after sex. That meant that if Patroclus took care of himself, it was usually with Achilles lazily planting sloppy kisses up his neck and murmuring sweet nothings in his ear. When Patroclus came, Achilles crushed their lips together like a lover. He would rake a glance over him, after – look for fear or resentment. It pleased him that Patroclus did not seem afraid of him, but there was a sadness about him.

“What do you like?” Achilles asked as they caught their breath one night.

“Like sex?”

“Yeah.”

Patroclus wiped himself down with a towel and frowned. “I dunno.”

“Do you like being fucked?”

“I guess.” Patroclus finished wiping himself up and rested back on the bed. “We’ve been over this.”

“Have not,” Achilles disagreed, leaning up on an elbow, one hand in Patroclus’s hair. “You don’t want me to get you off. I’m still curious about _what_ gets you off. Hell – I’m flexible. We could do something, and if you told me to stop, I’d stop and you could finish yourself off. I just want you to have a good time.”

“I have an alright time.”

“That really feeds my ego, Pat,” Achilles sighed.

Patroclus threw a feral grin. “You need me to feed your ego, Daddy? Tell you how good your big daddy cock feels? Mmm – want me to tell you how full it makes me feel – that cock so deep in my ass, ooh, yeah,” he moaned facetiously. “So fucking good, need it –”

“Alright, fuck you,” Achilles snapped, but he felt his face grow hot from arousal and embarrassment. “You know what – double fuck you. Is it so much to ask? If there’s something I could do… I mean, is there?”

Patroclus deflated, and he almost looked sorry. “I dunno. You’re the only guy who…”

Achilles was the only guy who had ever asked.

“You fucked a guy?”

“No.”

“You wanna fuck me?” Achilles asked.

Patroclus’s mouth fell open. “I… you wanna be fucked?”

“Maybe.” Achilles tilted his head so it rested against Patroclus’s and sighed. “Thought about it. Figure it’s something I should try, and I reckon you’d be alright with me. You’d make it feel alright.” Achilles felt Patroclus nod. “You don’t want me to jerk you off or suck your cock? I suck cock. Back in high school there was a guy – we’d suck each other off in the locker room after practice. Got a taste for it.”

“It feels good,” Patroclus murmured. “I know it feels good. But I’m afraid… I’m afraid it’ll make me feel bad again. Last time anything like that… I felt like shit, later. You know?”

Achilles didn’t know. But he tried. “Alright. Is it something we can work up to? Like how I touch you when you jerk yourself off – maybe more stuff like that?”

“You a therapist or what?” Patroclus muttered. “Most guys would probably prefer I was fucking unconscious.”

“Most guys are shutting their eyes and imagining you’re some young pussy. Your jizz ruins their fantasies, but you know – it’d kinda make mine. So you know...” Achilles knocked his shoulder into Patroclus. “Something to consider. You ever don’t like something, just say no, alright?”

“Alright. I’ll… I’ll think about it, or whatever.”

Achilles nodded. Then, “What do you like?”

“Huh?”

“Like, not sex. What do you like?”

“I don’t really know. Been here since I was a kid.”

“You don’t know what you fucking like?” Achilles asked the ceiling.

“Alright. If it’s so easy – Pelides; what do you like?” Patroclus asked.

Achilles couldn’t help it – he smiled into the dark. “I like modern novels, and real old shit. Like, the Greeks and Middle Ages stuff. I like that no matter how old it is, people are just the same. I like playing piano – Chopin and Beethoven, but I was getting into some of the French dudes too. I like fighting and sport. I like fucking and sucking cock. I like history, but can’t be fucked too much with politics. I like your body and the way you smell, and I like talking to you.”

Achilles rattled off his list easily. Even as a kid, Patroclus had always been too embarrassed to like things. What if he liked the wrong things? Or worse – what if his liking something made it wrong and uncool?

Patroclus shivered. “I like reading – it’s one of the only things to do in here. All sorts of things, but modern stuff is good. Never had much taste in music, but I sometimes find a song and – I dunno. It seems perfect. And I’ll wear it out – listen to it over and over until it’s just another song and I can’t remember why I liked it. I like animals. I always wanted a dog. Dogs don’t know if you say stupid shit. Used to like watching animals at the reserve near my house before… Nothing special – ducks, the odd snake or lizard, fish. I like being your boy,” Patroclus admitted.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty easy. And like you said – you’re good to me.”

“But you don’t wanna be my boyfriend.”

Patroclus sighed. “I don’t reckon that would be easy. I reckon that would be hard, Pelides. Impossible, maybe. Y’know?”

“I like a challenge,” Achilles murmured.

“But you don’t like losing,” Patroclus countered.

“Good thing I always win.”

* * *

“What’re you reading?” Achilles asked the next day. His voice was friendly, Patroclus thought. It would be more embarrassing if people heard Achilles talking like that than if an inmate walked in on him giving Achilles head.

Patroclus raised the cover to display the title. “ _Master and Margarita.”_

“Ah.”

Patroclus glanced up at him wearily. It was, in a petty way, frustrating that Achilles was jacked and feared, but also well-read. “You read it already?”

“No. No, I started it, and put it down,” Achilles admitted.

“Hmm?”

“It was… frustrating. It’s considered one of the best Russian novels of all time, and I didn’t get it. I feel like you have to know Russia to like it, and understand Russia to feel it, if that makes sense.” Books were easy for Achilles to talk about. Patroclus hid a smile – Achilles spoke eagerly even about books he had not read. “I mean, obviously it’s well-written and everything, but I just… I felt like I was missing jokes and political rhetoric.” Achilles hesitated. “But maybe you’re finding it different,” he said lamely, adding quickly, “Obviously heaps of people like it, even if they aren’t Russian.”

Achilles backpeddling. Achilles Pelides worrying Patroclus will be offended. Achilles Pelides speaking sweetly with him and holding him in the night. Patroclus should surely discourage him, but he didn’t have it in him, that afternoon.

“My mother was Russian,” Patroclus allowed. “I know what you mean. I think if I didn’t have a sense of Russia through her, I wouldn’t… _feel_ the book so much.”

Achilles stared at him. It wasn’t itself particularly shocking information. It was only a revelation that Patroclus had volunteered it. “I… oh.” Achilles sat in silence, configuring words and questions, and Patroclus wondered if maybe he wasn’t a master-manipulator after all – that he made Achilles nervous and hesitant seemed impossible.

“I don’t speak the language, and I never got to go there,” Patroclus offered, saving Achilles from asking, but giving him the conversation he seemed to crave. “I understand it when people speak it – when my mother spoke it. As a little kid, I could speak more, but it pissed my father off. When I was a kid, she used to sing to me and tell me stories in Russian – there were always princesses and swans and snow. We used to laugh. I don’t know if I understood the words, but I understood her. When I got older, she used to look at me as if she worried I couldn’t understand her – she would tell me something in Russian, and I would reply, and she would say the same thing in English, and I would repeat my response, and she would look lost, as if certain no matter what she said, I could never understand.” Patroclus gave a small shrug. “Maybe I couldn’t.”

“What was she like?” Achilles asked.

“Like a bird in a cage. My dad married her to get ahead – a business arrangement, more or less, and she got a greencard and a family. He wasn’t a great husband, I was far from a perfect son, and she was often… unwell.” Patroclus shuddered, recalling how his mother would stare blankly at the walls, waiting for days to pass as hours. _Я_ _понимаю,_ he wanted to tell her, _I understand._ “She was kind. Sometimes I resented it – my parents were so different, and maybe I would’ve been better off hardened by two like him than...” Patroclus picked up his book. “But I should want it the other way, really – that he was gone, or kind. Now she is dead, and he’s disowned me, and I have neither.”

“Do you think she did it? To herself?” Achilles probed, his voice low.

“Maybe.” Patroclus swilled the thought around in his mind, as he had a thousand times before. “She was unwell, and it wasn’t managed, and everything was… it was horrible, during the investigation. It would make sense, for her to have done it herself, but I think she would've said goodbye to me. I think she believed I was innocent, in her way.” His mother trembling before his father – _Patroclus is not killer and he is not gay. Patroclus is being… Patroclus is being hurt by man. Man you are knowing and bringing here. That boy… That boy must have hurt Patroclus…_ Patroclus tried to tell her the truth ( _I’m so sorry. No one hurts me. I didn’t… not with Clyde, but… I didn’t mind it. No one hurt me. I pushed him, but I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ ).

“Business…” Achilles mused. “My parents were too – a Pelides-Nereus unholy union; drugs and escorts. They hated each other. Think Adam Trask and Cathy Ames. Adam Trask in a bad way. They had me and split pretty quick. The business relationship is still there, though. I always think how cold that is.”

“I don’t know so much what was gained in the Menoitiades-Lebedev marriage,” Patroclus admitted.

Achilles sat up a little. “You say it different.”

“Huh?”

“Your last name. Just realized I’ve never heard you say it – just the guards, and they fuck it up. I just… It sounds familiar. Rings a bell.” Achilles frowned, as if making a note of something. “Have I distracted you?”

“A bit.”

“Do you mind if I distract you some more?” Achilles asked. There was no doubt about it, these days; Achilles actually asked his boy if he was happy to fuck.

Patroclus set his book down once more. “I don’t know, Pelides. There’s a talking cat and Jesus and the Devil to compete with.”

Achilles grinned and sat himself down on Patroclus’s lap. “Settle for the Devil?” he asked salaciously.

Achilles wanted him. Achilles liked that he was more willing than your typical inmate and gave decent head and wasn’t high all the time – all of which made sense. But Achilles also liked when he talked about himself, or the books he was reading. Achilles liked when they kissed, and when they woke up in the same bed. It was beginning to look as if Achilles needed him. Patroclus almost reminded him of their standing –

_I’m your boy, I fuck on command._

Or, _I came back to you, even after Hector – of course I’ll put down the novel and let you fuck me._

Or even simply, _It’s what I’m here for._

“Alright,” Patroclus said instead, placing the book down by his bed.

Achilles looked at him, green eyes trained on Patroclus’s face. It was strange and intimate and suffocating, having Achilles watch him this way, searching for something. Eventually, Achilles smiled, though Patroclus couldn’t for the life of him say what it was that he had found.

“Thank you,” said the Devil, before he claimed his mouth.

* * *

Achilles sat in the shade of the veranda with Chiron, Philoctetes and Odysseus, playing a hand of cards. Achilles had Hank and fellow prisoner Auto tailing Patroclus that afternoon, and felt free to hold council.

“I reckon I’m gonna get Patroclus released within the next year,” Achilles began.

Chiron scowled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He was set up.”

Odysseus threw his head back and laughed jovially. “Sorry, Pelides. Weren’t we all?”

Odysseus was a prick. Achilles kept him around because he was a tactful, smart prick, for the most part.

“No.” Achilles sniffed. “Patroclus doesn’t lie.”

“That’d make him the only one,” Philoctetes said carefully.

“Your boy tricked Ajax,” Odysseus remarked. “I’d say there’s not an unbroken nose among us, but there’s no fixing what you did to Ajax without a plastic surgeon.”

Achilles had been proud of his handiwork. Ajax’s face had been bloodied and mangled, when he finished – but he was alive. “He earned that.”

“Your boy said he could,” Odysseus said evenly.

“Patroclus didn’t ask for a split lip.”

“Didn’t he?” Odysseus asked, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “But alright; your boy’s innocent, and you’re gonna get him out?”

“Yeah,” Achilles said.

“What then?” Odysseus asked.

Achilles stared into his cards. “Then… I don’t know. We’ll be together.”

“You’ll be together?” Odysseus asked, eyebrow raised.

“Fuck you – you’re married. I hear your fucking bullshit pornographic phone calls with your wife.”

“Yeah. I’m married to a fucking saint. Your Patroclus has screwed two guys in here against your orders. Pelides, promise you won’t beat my face in, and I’ll be the only guy in this whole fucking joint who’ll be straight with you. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Let’s say your boy’s not guilty. Real fucking shame, and I wish him the best. And say it works out and he goes home with you – you pay your best lawyers to nut over some legalese, and some goons to shake down whatever bastard needs it. He has given no indication – so far as I can see – that he likes you. And that’s his fucking loss – swear to God, if I didn’t have a beautiful wife, I would be begging to be your boy. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Odysseus surmised.

“He talks to me.”

“We’re all fucking talking to you, Pelides.” Odysseus gestured at himself and the two older inmates.

“About personal stuff. He tells me the truth. Tells me things I don’t reckon he’s told anyone else,” Achilles confided.

“Because you fucking ask,” Odysseus exclaimed. “You’re Achilles fucking Pelides – most of these guys’d tell you their whole fucking life story if you sat them on your knee. And if they were skinny and pretty like him – Jesus. They’d be idiots not to. Giving you sweet nothings is the only thing keeping his ass in tact.”

“Watch it.”

“Sorry. Look – I just don’t want you losing your shit because one day you wake up and realize you wasted time and money and even fucking feelings on a guy who hasn’t even led you on. And he hasn’t, Pelides. That’s it,” Odysseus said. “I’ve said my piece.”

“It doesn’t feel like it’s all in my head. When he drinks – I see the cracks,” Achilles insisted. “I see him.”

“When I’m on the phone to my wife, I see her as my glamourous mistress – the woman I knew her as years ago, in our big house, lingerie, waiting for me to come home. Imagine I’m just on a trip for business. And I see that – when we’re talking dirty or sweet. But then I hear my son in the background, playing with my dad because I’m not there, and I remember that when I got done, they took away the big house and the nice car. I’m not talking to my mistress – I’m talking to my long-suffering wife who hates me a bit. She loves me, I think, but not like before.” Odysseus winced. “You squint your eyes and say – hey, he’s sweet with me when he’s wasted. I focus on her voice, and I can almost have it – what we used to have. But I hear the truth in the background. Open your eyes, Pelides. He’s your boy.”

“Lucky I promised not to beat your face in,” Achilles muttered. Then, “Do the names Menoitiades and Lebedev mean anything to you?”

Odysseus threw his head back and laughed. “You’re fucking me.” He whistled. “Guards really butchered that one. How’d they say it? _Mee-no-i-tye-dez?_ Thought it was Spanish.”

“Greek, I think.” Achilles scowled. “So you recognize the names?”

“They’re familiar,” Odysseus admitted cautiously. “It would be surprising if a Menoitiades was in Patroclus’s… particular position. I would expect him to be provided for.”

“Lebedevs supply, Menoitiades’s transport,” Philoctetes chipped in. “Your boy should be well connected, if the name’s not a coincidence.”

“Well, he’s hardly going to be innocent if he’s one like us, then, is he?” Odysseus proclaimed. “They got me on about a third of my shit – Pelides, you’re in on possession, but I’d bet there’s a fucking body count –”

“If he’s the Menoitides boy I’m thinking of,” Chiron cut in, his voice low and purposeful, “then I see what you mean, Pelides. There was something funny about how it was handled.”

“Walk with me,” Achilles said quickly. Then, remembering etiquette, “Sorry, Chiron. Please – a walk.”

There wasn’t much to know, but Achilles had something to work with. _Patroclus Menoitiades… only son of two known drug families… killed a boy, maybe on accident… mother died mysteriously…_

His Patroclus wasn’t a liar. His Patroclus was innocent and his, and Chiron was able to come up with names and places, and Achilles had somewhere to start about making things right.

* * *

One day Achilles came back from a phone call oddly guarded. Patroclus sensed it - sat a little straighter, glanced up as Achilles entered their cell - but didn’t venture to say anything. After a few seconds of silence, Achilles swallowed and, looking dead ahead, said, “I found the right Tony.”

Patroclus blinked. “There are a lot of Tonys in the world.”

“My family’s man – he’s pretty good at putting two and two together. Guy he found worked at the facility you were at, had complaints about conduct towards the boys. He has kids, you know.”

“I know.”

“He show you pictures?” Achilles asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“He did, actually. Got pretty cozy, if I’m honest.”

Achilles felt a strange wave of jealousy roll through him. “Well, he’s dead now.”

“I know.”

“Oh?”

“You found him. I didn’t think he’d live long after that.”

“Are you upset?”

“I don’t know. I’m not… I’m not relieved or anything. He had me for a time, and he didn’t want me for more than that. I knew when I left juvie I’d left him behind. He didn’t need to die,” Patroclus said blandly.

“Boys were still complaining, Patroclus.”

Patroclus shrugged. “You didn’t kill him for the boys.”

When Achilles first arrived at TRC and got taken in by Chiron and Philoctetes, they had given him the sage advice that most people behind bars were fucked up some way, and could be managed, not fixed. Patroclus was fucked up in a bunch of ways, Achilles thought. Some of them would heal up – mend, albeit with a scar. But for the most part, Achilles could manage his eccentricities.

“Well, he’s dead.” Achilles sighed. “Thought I’d start this with something light.”

Patroclus laughed. “Killing Tony’s light?”

“Yep. I uh…” Achilles hesitated. “I found your dad too.”

Patroclus froze. “Did you… did you kill my dad?”

“No. No, I didn’t fucking kill you dad,” Achilles said, as though he hadn’t just casually discussed Tony’s execution. “You know our dads are in the same business?”

Patroclus frowned. “Makes sense, I guess.”

“Yeah?”

“Dad wasn’t real touchy-feely. We had a nice house, he went to work, he did whatever else. I knew he was a businessman, and I didn’t think he was totally legit, but no more than that.”

Achilles grinned. “So you really didn’t know we’d met?”

Patroclus sat up abruptly. “What?”

“Settle down,” Achilles said dismissively, but he moved himself across their cramped shared space and sat next to Patroclus on his bed. “I didn’t know either. You were little Patrick Menoitiades, and I was Alex Johnson.”

“Alex Johnson?”

“Right up till I was arrested – lived half my life as Alex Johnson, and some of the sketchier parts as Achilles Pelides. My family’s got enemies and people know the Pelides name. No hiding it, here. Hell, I wouldn’t want to hide it here.”

“No one ever called me Patrick.”

“Your dad went around telling people your name was ‘Pat’ and people assumed. When I was invited to your tenth birthday, Dad told me I was going there for some boy I'd never met named Patrick. You remember your tenth birthday, Patrick?”

Patroclus frowned, casting his mind back. It wasn’t so difficult – he hadn’t had many birthdays. When they were celebrated, it was usually his father’s idea, and always attended by ‘clients’ and kids who didn’t know or like him much. “I was sick,” Patroclus said eventually. “Dad had invited heaps of kids and their parents – there were jumping castles and races and clowns and facepainting, and I was unwell all day.”

“Barely caught a glimpse of you,” Achilles agreed. “You were always with your mom or dad looking miserable. I won all the races and had a blast. And then,” Achilles continued, “you went to one grammar school, and I went to the other. You know we played ball against each other? Dad said so – we were the same year in school, and our schools versed each other at sports.”

“I don’t remember,” Patroclus admitted.

“Neither do I. Funny, though. We should’ve met a dozen times over. Hell, I was pretty sure I liked cock when I was eleven or twelve – I should’ve met you and mooned over you then. Before… Before. We should’ve met before.”

Achilles imagined it – imagined he had taken a walk with Patroclus into the reserve instead of Clyde. Imagined sitting with him by the stream and talking too loud and fast – at that age he needed to be reigned in, but Patroclus is gentle, and would have let him run his mouth until he ran out of words. Achilles would have made plans to see him – again and again and again. Patroclus would have been his.

Sitting beside him on the hard, punitive mattress, Patroclus was almost his, sometimes; they shared moments. Patroclus gave Achilles his story and his body – but only because he seemed certain they were worthless. Patroclus wouldn’t give him love, Achilles thought, perhaps because he considered his own love to be an affliction. If it couldn’t be fixed, it might be managed.

“The point is,” Achilles began again, “our dads are in the same business. And not to shit on your family, but my dad’s a better businessman – he has power and resources. There’re a few things we can bank on to get him to confess to lying during your trial.”

“Like?”

“I mean, our lawyers and investigator will do good work – look over the case, find the holes. But Daddy has some tricks – threats, mostly. Cutting him out of markets, hold up supply lines, even good old fashioned drive-bys.” Achilles hesitated. “It might come to do or die.”

“Do or die?”

“It’s what it sounds like. Tell him to admit to perjury or we’ll kill him. If that’s okay.”

Patroclus leaned back until he was lying down, gazing at the ceiling as if he was spying on constellations. “You want permission to threaten my dad?”

“I want permission to kill your dad,” Achilles said gravely. “Because if he messes around – tries to skip town or whatever… Pelides threats aren’t for show. If we say we’ll do something, they gotta know we mean it.”

“He’s my dad.”

“He got you life in prison. He put you here to be hurt and… and raped, and one day, to die. You tried to die, and he… it was him.”

Achilles remembered doing drama class at school – he’d been good at it. The teacher had always emphasized the language of the body – that it tells a story. Patroclus was good at silencing that language – he excelled at masking his expressions, making his body limp and formless. In a way, that was part of Patroclus’s story – there was meaning in it. There was loathing and shame and fear and tiredness in it. But Patroclus’s truth occasionally escaped out his mouth. With only a stray quirk of his lips, Patroclus began to speak in his toneless, croaky voice.

“Tony told me to call him ‘Daddy’. He almost treated me like I was his kid, sometimes. Gave me cake on my birthdays and little presents. Always thought it was funny that he could fuck me, but also try to be like a dad – like ‘friends with benefits’.” Patroclus laughed. “‘Papa with perks’? When he found out what I’d done with the razor, he had to react like a dad, and like a prison guard who raped boys. Kinda funny – he was upset, even. ‘You’re too young, you can’t do this, you should’ve come to me’ and all the rest. But also, ‘You can’t tell anyone what we’ve been doing or who gave you the razor’.”

Achilles felt his insides knot up. “I… I’m sorry,” he offered impotently.

“Say – I ever tell you how I got the razor?” Patroclus asked flatly, flicking his dead gaze up to Achilles.

“I… you told him you’d shave. You said –”

Patroclus grinned. “Yeah. I said to him, ‘Daddy, you’re so good to me. Your big cock’s so good for me. Gonna miss it so bad, need it so bad. Gonna get out of juvie and be begging the big boys to do me like you do me. Gonna call them ‘Daddy’ and I’ll be thinking about you, closing my eyes and picturing you. Let me give you a good night – wanna shave myself smooth for you. Please, Daddy – let me be good for you.’”

“Fuck.”

“Took more wheedling than just that, though.” Patroclus sat himself down on Achilles’s lap, straddling him. “It was real _hard_ work. Hadta fucking dry-hump him like a dog.” He danced his hips over Achilles’s crotch and leaned into his ear. “‘Please, Daddy, let me. Please. It’s all I want. Wanna be perfect for you, be so perfect for you. Wouldn’t hurt anyone – your baby boy is harmless. Haven’t I always been good?’”

“Jesus. Jesus fucking… Pat, get off me,” Achilles urged.

“Makes you hard,” Patroclus observed.

“You’re riding my fucking lap – of course I’m hard. You have to get off me.”

Patroclus shook his head and continued to ride him, resting his cheek on Achilles’s shoulder. “I lied to Tony. I tricked him – like I tricked Ajax. Ajax gave me pruno for a fuck, and got the shit beat out of him. Tony gave me that razor expecting a smooth fuck, and instead he had to mop up a suicide attempt – no fucking me after that.” Patroclus reached into Achilles’s pants and stroked his cock. “You’re gonna throw money at my problems, and you’re gonna expect a nice fuck to follow you around. Or a _boyfriend_.” Patroclus sneered the word, increasing the tempo.

“Pat, get off me.”

“But what’s gonna happen when I don’t fucking bend over at the snap of your fingers, huh? Or when I do, but for someone else? Whose face will get beat into then?”

“Patroclus –”

“What happens when you have some nice fucking McMansion and you put me in there to play house, and you find me swinging from the fixtures –”

In a flash, Patroclus was on the floor with the breath knocked out of him, dazed.

“Fuck you,” Achilles snarled, his face twisted and unfamiliar. He took a series of labored breaths and sat back down on the bed, head in hands. “Fuck.”

Patroclus lay still on the cold cement floor and gazed at the ceiling. He felt the hollow sensation of victory spread through him. “I can’t give you what you want,” he said dizzily.

There was silence but for Achilles’s breaths for a while. Then, “What do I want?”

“More.” Patroclus closed his eyes. “I can’t give you more, Achilles. I don’t have more to give.”

Achilles groaned in frustration. “Fuck,” he muttered. _Patroclus is fucked up, but he can be managed,_ he told himself. One breath. Another. “Are you mad I killed Tony?”

Patroclus considered this. “He was my whole world, for a while. He didn’t have to give me things – it would’ve been just the same if he didn’t bring me presents, I still woulda… It’s weird, though – I don’t remember ever feeling anything for him. I didn’t feel anything when I betrayed him. But his death was pointless. I don’t know.”

“When you betrayed him?”

“When I tricked him into giving me the razor.”

Achilles felt a laugh rock through him. Maybe it was the adrenalin, but he found he couldn’t stop – he just kept laughing and laughing until it dried up into coughing. “You’re so fucked up,” he said with a sense of awe. “You think you’re some fucking temptress succubus or some shit. You were a fucking kid and Tony raped you for three years, and you talk about betraying him by getting a razor so you could kill yourself. Ajax gave you a bottle of piss-grade alcohol in exchange for a fuck that had you wincing when you walked, and you beat yourself up because I rearranged his face for splitting your lip. No one’s been betrayed. You’re a fucking kid who was bullied and framed and wrongfully convicted and beat up and raped because of your fucking father, and it wouldn’t be a betrayal to get out. It wouldn’t even be a betrayal if I killed him with my fucking hands, because some people deserve what they get – but you…” Achilles laughed again. “You have it backwards. You think you should die, and that your dad should walk the streets, but it’s the opposite way around. You don’t deserve this, Patroclus.”

Patroclus felt his throat close and his eyes sting. Some of the guys at TRC didn’t seem to feel anymore – no joy, no sadness; just the odd stroke of rage. Patroclus wished he couldn’t feel a damn thing.

“I’m sorry I shoved you,” Achilles muttered.

“You were right to,” Patroclus managed, though the words were almost voiceless. He forced himself to sit up. “You can kill my dad, if you want. I don’t like him any more than I liked Tony, and I didn’t like Tony.” Patroclus laughed. “Hell, Tony was more of a father to me.”

“Yeah, but you still call him your dad. I’ll try not to kill him,” Achilles said. Then, “I should have asked before I put the hit on Tony.”

“How’d he die?” Patroclus asked.

“You don’t wanna know,” Achilles admitted. Suddenly he felt exhausted. “Pat – get up off the floor.”

Patroclus gradually sat himself upright, rubbing the side of his head where it had struck the ground.

“You alright?” Achilles asked guiltily.

“’m fine.”

“You okay to sleep with me?”

Patroclus blinked back expressionlessly. “Of course.”

“Because if you felt uneasy about it or needed space, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t freak out, or whatever.” Achilles had taken to sharing a bed with Patroclus, even when they weren’t fucking. It got chilly at night – an easy excuse to hold someone.

Patroclus nodded gravely. “Then maybe tonight I’ll… I think maybe I’ll be restless, so it might be better if I’m alone.”

That night, Patroclus had nightmares. It wasn’t unusual – his sleep was unsettled once or twice a week by Achilles’s count. But this night he screamed and begged and sobbed until Achilles managed to convince him the shadows of his slumber dissolved in waking. Amidst groans from other inmates ( _Hey, shut your bitch up_ ), Achilles kneeled at Patroclus’s bedside and whispered streams of soothing words.

“You wanna come in?” Patroclus offered tiredly.

Achilles almost said yes. “Do you want me to?”

Patroclus stayed quiet a long time. Then, “I’m sorry for waking you.”

Achilles sighed. “Don’t be.” He kissed Patroclus in the dark, his lips finding his temple, before staggering back to his own cold bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading <3
> 
> As always, your comments are the best part of my lockdown existence. 
> 
> I would actually be keen to ask what your fancast/vision of Patroclus and Achilles would be. 
> 
> For Patroclus, I can see Álvaro Rico (Polo from 'Elite') or Matvey Lykov. I always struggle with Achilles, but lately I've been thinking Evan Roderick ('Spinning Out'). Maybe it's literally just his character in 'Spinning Out' (who in my opinion, embodies entitled rich boy douche with a heart of gold and beautiful feelings perfectly), but I could see him in a modern au. Would love to hear your thoughts (on the chapters and or fancast).


	5. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surrender; giving in, giving up, sacrifice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> A timely update! Things might get more erratic (it's exam season for me), but I think we only have 2.5/3 chapters, so fingers crossed I can do it.
> 
> This chapter has actual, non-alluded to sexual (consensual? It's pretty consensual) content. It's a bit hectic and rough, but I hope you like it.

“You given any more thought to fucking me?” Achilles asked one day.

“You want me to?” Patroclus asked, glancing up from his book.

“Yeah. Wanna at least try it, you know?” Achilles said easily. It was an easy thing for Achilles to say.

“It’ll probably hurt, you know,” Patroclus said, the way a parent might warn a child not to drink scolding hot tea.

“You would try to make it good for me, though?”

“I’d try,” Patroclus agreed. “But you might hate it.”

“Then I hate it. I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Do you trust me?” Achilles asked.

Patroclus looked back to his book, but said, “Yeah.”

“And you wouldn’t mind it?”

Patroclus shrugged.

“Pat, could you look at me and talk it through? Please?” Achilles asked, his patience wearing thin.

Patroclus heaved a heavy sigh and closed his book. “A lot could go wrong. I might hurt you. You might not like it. I might not be able to get hard. I might cum too quickly. I might cum, and feel like shit.”

“You can say ‘no’,” Achilles offered. “You decide for you, but the shit about me… I’ve thought about it, and I want to try anyway.”

“Alright. I can… I can try,” Patroclus said, before returning to his book.

* * *

The night they did it, they drank some vodka Hank had snuck in for them. Achilles would never admit it, but he felt afraid. He didn’t know how to describe the fear – it was a peculiar thing. Patroclus had warned him of pain, but that didn’t worry him. No. As he took his last shot, he wondered why it was so easy to speak of fucking, yet so alien and embarrassing to negotiate being fucked.

“So how do you want me?” Achilles asked nonchalantly.

“How ever you like,” Patroclus said simply. Achilles must have revealed his unnamable fear, for Patroclus’s face softened; he smiled a little, his eyes lightened up, and there he was. There was Patroclus – a rare sighting. “Maybe lie back,” he suggested. “You want us to be undressed?”

The question struck Achilles as an odd one – but then, Patroclus was often partially clothed during their encounters. Just as often, he himself would kick back in bed in a singlet and jocks, his cock slipped out over the waistband for Patroclus to suck. “Yeah. I’d like us to be.”

“Alright,” Patroclus murmured, and they undressed. Achilles felt even then, lying naked on a rough towel on his prison quality mattress, that there was something of religion in their disrobing. When Patroclus kissed him, it felt like prayer. “Is this okay?” Patroclus asked, the hoarseness he acquired after the incident with the bedsheets hushing his voice.

“Yeah. Yes. I like it.”

His gentle Patroclus kissed him and touched him for what felt like hours – Achilles worried he might cum or fall asleep before the main event. Eventually, Patroclus made his way down Achilles’s body, engulfing his cock in his mouth.

“I… Pat, I don’t wanna… you know, before we…”

“I know,” Patroclus said. It was then that Achilles felt something wet and strong against his hole.

“I… fuck. Pat… is that your tongue?” Achilles whispered.

A hand took ahold of his cock and Patroclus laid a kiss on his inner thigh. “Yeah. Good?”

“You don’t have to…”

“You like it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, feels… feels good, Patroclus.” Achilles squirmed a little as Patroclus’s tongue pushed inside of him. “Fuck. Fuck, Pat.” Quickly, however, Patroclus’s tongue was replaced by a slicked up finger as Patroclus sucked lazily on his cock. “Pat… Pat, I don’t wanna cum. Come on – I don’t stand a chance at this rate.” He felt Patroclus laugh a little as he sat back.

“I want to give you three fingers before we try. Is that alright?” he said softly.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Gonna do two now. Alright? Relax. I know – you feel like you’re relaxed, but you aren’t. It’s something you learn.” He thumbed Achilles nipple and pressed a kiss against his hip. “There we go. Two. Is that alright?”

Achilles shuddered. He had felt full at one – two was a stretch. Three… a cock… “It’s good.”

Patroclus thrust his fingers in and out, and Achilles felt himself ease up a touch – tension he didn’t realise he had melted away.

“I’ll give you three?”

“Okay,” Achilles grunted. “Please.”

Three burned. Achilles fought back grunts and moans and whines as Patroclus let him adjust. Then –

“Is that…?”

“Prostrate,” Patroclus agreed. “Like it?”

“Yeah,” Achilles managed. “Could you…?” Patroclus appeased him, and Achilles closed his eyes, giving into the sensation. “That’s… that’s nice. I like that.”

“We can just stick with this, if you’d like,” Patroclus murmured. “I can get you off like this. I can make it feel good.”

“No,” Achilles breathed. “No. Want you… If you’re still up for it?”

Patroclus smiled kindly, and Achilles felt a new pleasure explode within him. Patroclus was touching him and holding him, and it felt good, and Patroclus was feeling and letting Achilles see.

Patroclus laid himself down beside Achilles, kissed the corner of his mouth, and, lying back, lubed up his cock. “It’s gonna be best for you if you hop on top.”

Achilles frowned. “I… you never…”

“Best for a beginner,” Patroclus amended. “I’m a pro.”

Achilles tentatively straddled Patroclus’s hips. “You’re so good to me,” he whispered in awe. “I wish… I wish I had’ve been better with you.”

“Well, like I said – I’m a pro.” Patroclus’s face hardened a fraction, and Achilles felt a new fear – that his Patroclus would close up again, lock him out.

“Alright. Alright. I’ll just…” Achilles took him. Inch by inch, slowly to the tune of Patroclus’s hushed encouragement ( _That’s good, feels good, you’re doing so well_ ). “Fuck, it hurts.”

“We can stop –”

“I don’t want to. I want this. I just… Christ. It’s a lot.” Eventually he bottomed out, and he rested there a good long while, eyes closed, the sensation of Patroclus thumbing circles into his thigh tethering him to the earth. Gradually, he began to ride Patroclus until the pleasure overwhelmed the pain. “Can we… I want you on top?”

Patroclus looked at him with foreign affection and nodded. “Alright.”

Patroclus placed a pillow under Achilles’s hips, lined him up, rested his face in the crook of Achilles’s neck, and fucked him tenderly. All Achilles felt was Patroclus’s cock inside of him, and his lips – on his neck, his mouth, whispering against his ear.

“Touch yourself,” Patroclus whispered. “I’ve got you. I’m here. Touch yourself – I want you to.”

Achilles didn’t last long – he didn’t stand a chance. As he came, he felt himself tense and tighten around Patroclus. Patroclus paused.

“Don’t stop,” Achilles heard himself beg. “Please. Please don’t stop. Please finish inside me.”

Within a few minutes, Patroclus surrendered. Achilles would never forget the way he gasped in pleasure and surprise as he came inside him, their bodies entwined.

* * *

“I liked that a lot,” Achilles mumbled into his chest. “You were so good. I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did.”

“Thanks,” Patroclus muttered into the darkness. He felt Achilles sigh into him – knew he wanted pillowtalk and intimacy. Knew that was what Achilles had liked about being fucked. Patroclus used to imagine it that way, when he was a boy – a man fucking him gently and passionately. Tony had, eventually. Patroclus remembered how gentle and encouraging he had been, after the first time. Patroclus had asked him to stop, but Tony had continued to rape him, gently, and with a steady stream of encouragement.

“Did you like it?”

“I came,” Patroclus said detachedly.

“I know. We could do this again. I just… I dunno. Are we back to square one? You not gonna talk to me?” Achilles asked tiredly.

“I… I don’t know. I came,” Patroclus said again. And he felt sickness and shame and loathing rock through him.

Patroclus saw Achilles’s disappointment, and didn’t sleep a wink.

* * *

In juvie, Patroclus was often put in solitary – it was easier for Tony to fuck him, that way, and sometimes Patroclus was better kept alone. Patroclus hadn’t minded it, sometimes – you could pound the walls with yours fists, bawl. No one cared so much.

Achilles’s protection was bad that way. Achilles watched him and had him watched. If he threw himself against the concrete walls, Achilles would restrain him. If he cried, Achilles would hold him. Patroclus wanted to hurt – _needed_ to hurt.

One day, Auto was following him – one of Achilles’s spies – and Patroclus made a go of it.

“Are you his boy too?” Patroclus asked the young man as he did morning exercises. It was no coincidence that he happened to do this a few feet away from Patroclus that day – when Achilles held court with Chiron, Philoctetes and Odysseus, there was always someone keeping tabs. Auto wore cropped hair and crooked teeth and he was narrow like Patroclus without the prettiness, and his face creased at the question.

“No,” Auto said quickly.

“Really? You seem like the type,” Patroclus cooed.

“I’m no one’s bitch,” he snapped.

Patroclus felt his lips stretch into a sneer. “Never considered it?”

“I’m not a fag.”

“Achilles gives it good. You might like it,” Patroclus said, pleased when Auto flushed red. “He has a big cock. No – he has a _beautiful_ cock. Worth turning for. Not the best I’ve had, though.”

Auto blinked back at him, and maybe it was Patroclus’s imagination, but he could swear he was breaking a sweat.

“Older, married men are something else. Something about them – with their wedding bands and secrets. I like it when they have kids – feel like I’m a homewrecker. Loved it when I was a teenager – not much older than their kids. Imagine fucking a sixteen year old in solitary, but scaring the shit out of the boy taking your daughter to prom. Because I’m not their kid; I’m no one’s kid. Achilles can’t fuck me like that,” Patroclus said silkily.

“You’re sick,” Auto muttered.

“You reckon it catches?” Patroclus asked, stepping into Auto’s personal space. “You want a turn? I won’t tell him.”

Patroclus saw him recoil in disgust, and he felt shame as pleasure.

“You got a dad? I’d let you watch,” Patroclus said sweetly. “I’d let you join in while he fucks me.”

Patroclus was glad when Auto beat him. He didn’t think he had much left to taunt him with, short of touching him, and Patroclus didn’t want to assault Auto if he could help it. It was over quickly – Patroclus wound up on the ground, his head throbbing and left eye swollen. It was good to feel pain – pain as numbness.

* * *

Patroclus imagined Achilles might hurt him. The thought filled him with fear and dread and glee – that Achilles might at last see him for what he was.

“You gotta stop with the bullshit,” Hank murmured as he escorted him from the infirmary to his cell. “You want him to lose it? What do you reckon that’d look like, exactly?”

Achilles was generous and calm, but he was passionate and self-centered also, and Patroclus knew a dragon lived within him. Achilles might shove him. Achilles might fuck him good and proper. Achilles might cuss him out and push him off to another cell.

Achilles might finish him off.

“I’m real excited to see,” Patroclus said softly.

“Am I gonna haveta intervene?” Hank asked, his voice strained with frustration.

“Don’t. I’ll deserve it.”

“If he gets you bad enough, I’ll have to write it up. You want his stay extended?”

Patroclus stopped in his tracks. “No.”

Hank sighed. “No one should be beating anyone around here – I get that. But you’re smart. You _know_ what you’re doing, and you know these guys aren’t going to fight you back with words – they only have their fists, most of ‘em. And you’ll always have the high ground, because you don’t throw punches – and I get it. I do. And you don’t deserve to be hit, but Auto didn’t deserve what you did to him neither. And I bet you weren’t sweating over whether or not you were fucking him over for parole neither. So just… just think, kid.”

Patroclus stood stock still in the corridor, defeated. “There are guys above you, aren’t there – at TRC? Guys not paid off by Pelides?”

For a moment, Hank looked almost frightened. “What?”

Patroclus swallowed. “If I asked you to get me transferred, you could convince someone higher up on the foodchain? Tell them I’m causing trouble or something. You could get me away from him, if I need, without retribution from the Pelides family?”

Hank frowned. “If we can avoid any write-ups, I might be able to get you recommended for a lower security rating. I thought you were his little prince or whatever – thought he was good to you.”

“I’m not good, Hank,” Patroclus said. “I wish you hadn’t saved me, that day. Now I think I’ll have to wait till he gets out.”

Patroclus walked on, and Hank trailed behind him in silence.

* * *

Achilles waited for him to speak. He sat perfectly still on his bed, eyes probing Patroclus.

“I’m sorry,” Patroclus offered flatly. “For pushing Auto.”

Achilles blinked. “Yeah?”

“Hank mentioned it might affect his parole hearing. I shouldn’t’ve used him.”

“Used him?”

Patroclus looked down. There was something in Achilles’s voice – a peculiar strain. He was fighting to keep in control. “I wanted him to beat the shit out of me. Like Ajax. You know… I know you know.”

“What’s the damage?” Achilles asked.

“You can see –”

“Tell me anyway,” Achilles said coldly.

Patroclus nodded. “Really it’s just a black eye. Probably some bruises on my cheek – doctor didn’t think there were any fractures.” Patroclus hesitated – Achilles knew everything. Achilles would probably see the damn medical report. “Likely a concussion. I feel sick, and I’ve got a headache. But that’s it.”

“Why’d he hit you?” Achilles asked.

Patroclus shivered. “I provoked him.”

“What did you say to provoke him?”

“I said how good it’d be if his dad would fuck me,” Patroclus said hoarsely.

“ _Would_ it be good if his dad fucked you, Patroclus?” Achilles’s voice was icy, his gaze unwavering.

Patroclus shook his head.

“What else did you say?”

“Nothing much.”

“Short conversation. No set up. You didn’t say anything else?”

Patroclus winced. Auto would tell Achilles. Or Hank would find out. “I asked if you’d fucked him. Told him he should let you – that you’re good about it. I told him about Tony – not in so many words. About him being a dad and… and that was how we got onto the subject. Pushed him until he snapped.”

“You have a talent for that,” Achilles observed. “You offer to let him fuck you?”

“Yes,” Patroclus whispered. “I don’t think I would’ve let him.”

“No?”

Patroclus nodded.

“I keep thinking it’ll work out, and it never does. Why?” Achilles asked. He looked like Alex Johnson, then – a golden boy troubled over a maths sum. Achilles Pelides – drug lord, killer of men – puzzled over Patroclus.

“I’m no good,” Patroclus mumbled.

“You’re smart, and funny, and you fuck good, and I _like_ you. I don’t care that you’re ‘no good’. I care that you keep trying to fuck this up. What do you want from me?” Achilles asked.

“Nothing,” Patroclus said.

“You want me to react? To you taunting Auto? What do you want me to do? Sock the other eye? Take up the offer Auto declined?” Achilles asked, leaning forward in exasperation.

“No,” Patroclus said quietly. “Maybe?”

“You like being my boy – you said so. You _like_ being my boy. What do you want from me?” Achilles hissed. “Because I offer you feelings and sex and your fucking exoneration, and it’s just the same shit. What can I do?”

“Nothing.” Patroclus sat down on his bed and hugged his knees. “I’m fucked up. If my dad didn’t do it, it was the system, or Tony, or before with... I want to die, Achilles. I want you to finish your sentence, and then I can finish mine on my own terms.” Patroclus took a breath an looked up at Achilles. “Everything you do for me – if feels good and nice and warm and fuzzy, and then I feel like shit. Because it can’t last. I’m going to die here, and I wish the concussion could erase the memory of the other night, because you’ll leave in a few months, and I’ll die here, thinking about that night.”

Achilles stared at him, green eyes boring holes into him. “I’m going to get you out.”

“You aren’t,” Patroclus said gently. “Achilles, I’m not getting out of here alive.”

“Do you ever feel anything for me? _Ever_? Do you like me?”

It was funny to Patroclus – the way Achilles felt things. Achilles was big and strong and golden and mighty, but he wanted warmth just the way a runt like Patroclus craved it. But Patroclus didn't have warmth to give. “I like you. And I think… I think if we had’ve wandered into the reserve together, I would have been yours, maybe, if you wanted me. But that didn’t happen. There are slim pickings in here, and I understand why I seem like a halfway decent option, but you’re gonna get out in a few months, and you’ll realise it was a trick of the light.”

“You like me?” Achilles asked sternly.

Patroclus blinked. “Yeah, I fucking like you.”

The way Achilles smiled, then – like a prize idiot. Like it mattered. Like it was a good thing Patroclus’s heart was going to be pulverized. “I’ll get you out,” Achilles promised.

Patroclus sighed, picked himself up, and wandered over to Achilles’s bed, laying his body against the length of Achilles. “How long now? Before you get out?”

“Four months,” Achilles said.

Patroclus kissed his throat. “How long do you think it takes to get a man exonerated for two murders?”

Achilles frowned. “Once we get your dad –”

“Years,” Patroclus whispered into the crook of his neck. “It could take years. Wheels of justice and all that.” Patroclus pressed a kiss against Achilles’s jaw. “It could take years, only to be told no. Enjoy the time we have, then forget about me and TRC.”

“No. No…” Achilles sat up. “For real?”

“Yeah.”

Achilles scowled. “You like me? You’d… you’d be with me? Like you said – if we had’ve… you’d be mine?”

Patroclus shivered. “Yeah.”

“I can… I could rack up some extra time?” Achilles said quickly.

“At TRC?”

“While they develop your case. I could hang around for a bit.”

“No,” Patroclus said simply. “I won’t let you.”

“You can’t stop me. You pull your bullshit – I could… I’ll figure this out. Fuck… years…”

Patroclus sighed. He felt oddly calm. “I know my face is bruised up and ugly, but do you wanna fuck me? It’s all the same from behind.”

Achilles offered a grin. Their heads were full of schemes, Patroclus thought, but Achilles lacked his knack for betrayal.

* * *

One night, Patroclus kissed him like it was his birthday, and Achilles should have known then.

“Hank brought us whiskey,” Achilles murmured into Patroclus’s lips. “Didn’t even ask. Must’ve been Father.”

“Mmm,” Patroclus hummed playfully. “We could have some now, and some later.”

“Later?”

“You wanna fuck?” he asked, and there was light in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Achilles breathed.

“Me, or you?” Patroclus asked.

“I could bottom,” Achilles offered. “Last time you… I wasn’t sure you’d want it again.”

“I liked it. I can do that.”

Patroclus let him in. Patroclus took time. Patroclus kissed him and held him and whispered gentle encouragements in his ear, and Achilles should have known then.

When Patroclus plied him with whiskey _after_ they fucked. When Patroclus talked freely –

_I always wanted to be a paramedic._

_My mom used to go with me to the reserve – we skipped stones together._

_The first cock I sucked was Clyde’s dad’s. I always wondered if Clyde knew that. I thought you should know._

_I’ll miss you. You’re good to me, Pelides. I’m grateful. I’d hate for you to think I’m not._

Achilles should have known that Patroclus wouldn’t be there in the morning.

* * *

Menoitiades knocked twice against the door per their signal, and Hank unlocked the cell.

“’bout time,” he grumbled. “Thought you’d passed out too.”

“No,” Menoitiades supplied simply.

“I can’t believe,” Hank said, “Achilles Pelides lets you fuck him.”

Menoitiades kept his face perfectly expressionless and shrugged. “You watch?”

“I copped an eyeful. Trust me, I’m not happy about it. The whiskey worked? His father said it was his drink.”

“Yeah. It was still a trick getting him to drink enough.”

“I see you led by example.”

Menoitiades held the wall to keep himself steady, his cheeks a little flushed. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

Hank almost quizzed Menoitiades what the fuck he was sorry about, but figured he was a lost cause.

“I’ll pop you in solitary until transport – you can catch a couple of hours of sleep,” Hank proposed. “It’s after two now, and you should be gone by five or six. Your new block is lower security – nicer. An upgrade.”

Menoitiades stared at something far away. “You’ll go easy on him, won’t you? If he lashes out a bit when he realizes… realizes what I’ve done?”

“Yeah. That’s what they pay me for.”

Menoitiades nodded vacantly. There was a prettiness about him – Hank saw why Menoitiades made for a good boy. He was pretty and almost doll-like – not like a porcelain doll so much as a sexdoll, maybe. Menoitiades’s vacantness attracted people who wanted to fill him up; with their cocks, or with whatever it was Pelides tried to give him.

“Pelides senior sends his gratitude,” Hank murmured. “Sent you some money for commissary, even. I dunno if he thought that was your angle, but he was grateful just the same.”

“Sounds like me,” Menoitiades said flatly.

“I told him it probably wasn’t the case. Told him Pelides would’ve given you more than a couple of hundred dollars, if you stuck around,” Hank said as they walked side by side to solitary. “Said you were his little prince.”

Menoitiades smiled a little. His smiles always looked secretive and frightening, Hank thought. What did Menoitiades have to smile about?

“He was gonna try to rescue me from my tower,” Menoitiades said, his words a soft slur. When Hank looked up, he saw tears tracking down Menoitiades’s face, catching on his stretched lips. “What an idiot. The easiest way out is to jump.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> As I said, I hope to update within a week as usual, but exams are upon me, so pls forgive me if things go awry.
> 
> Oof the reveal about Clyde's dad. In the first chapter, Patroclus mentions his first sexual experiences being with a man who had a kid the same age as him. That was obviously Clyde's dad. Next chapter is set back when Patroclus was young, so there will be more insight into everything that went down (not explicit, but still pretty awful). I'll put in warnings and a full chapter summary in the notes).
> 
> As always, your comments mean the world to me <3


	6. The Original Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patroclus's life before Achilles and TRC.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Warnings overload in this chapter. This follows Patroclus's life before he meets Achilles (in other words, it documents aspects of his relationships with Clyde's father, as well as with Tony). The sexual elements are there, but not described in any detail or eroticised. If the whole idea of this just gets you the wrong way, you can probably give this chapter a miss. I summarised the chapter in the end notes, and why I've written it (so you know what future chapters might be drawing from).
> 
> Anyway, it's something a bit different - present tense, and I've done the speech differently. I hope you like it.

The day Andy first comes over, Patroclus’s father stops him in the hallway and tells him to be good and polite and not to hide away in his room. Patroclus doesn’t like guests; he’s seen other boys his age act charming and interesting around adults, but Patroclus can hardly look his own father in the eye – strangers are impossible.

_I’ll help Mama in the kitchen,_ Patroclus says. Mama is funny about guests too. They keep the same silence, he and Mama – lips shut, a gate to keep stupid things in. Patroclus is like his mother in too many ways for his father’s liking. But although Father doesn’t like it when Patroclus follows Mama around the house, he likes it even less when Patroclus sits with him in the den.

_You can try a bit harder than that,_ Father warns. _Mayor Andy is very important._

Patroclus tries. Patroclus helps with the casserole and peels potatoes and sets the table, and when Andy arrives, Patroclus doesn’t flee to his room as he would like. Andy shakes his hand with a big grin, his blue eyes bright and penetrating. Patroclus flushes red, and is glad when Andy drops his hand and begins talking about adult things. Patroclus doesn’t like how he gets around men. He is fourteen, and sometimes he thinks of women and feels warm and curious, but when he thinks of men he feels embarrassed and hot and stupid and desperate.

At dinner, Andy looks at him. Father sometimes likes the sound of his own voice too much and runs into a tangent, and neither Mama nor Patroclus have ever been brave or reckless enough to stop him. Patroclus is used to nodding along, half listening, but that evening Andy catches his eye and winks. Andy cuts Father short, and Patroclus pins his gaze to the kitchen table for the remainder of the meal, occasionally touching his cheeks to feel if they burn. They do.

After dinner, Patroclus makes the adults coffee, and runs away to his room. It isn’t so long until Andy joins him. He doesn’t knock. Patroclus was considering jerking off to the thought of Andy, and it occurs to him that if he had, Andy would have seen him touching himself. The thought makes it hard to breathe.

Patroclus expects Andy to say something about trying to find the bathroom, when instead he makes a joke about Father. Something about the endless niceties, the schmoozing, the boasting and him being a ‘loudmouth’. Patroclus can’t remember what, but he laughs. They share the joke, and it feels good that maybe Andy likes him more than he likes Father.

Patroclus doesn’t remember exactly how it happened that Andy winds up kissing him. One second they are joking, the next Andy’s lips are against his, pushing him against his bookcase.

_Good boy,_ Andy says. _I bet I prefer your mouth._

Patroclus takes a moment to consider what that means – if it means Andy wants to talk to him or kiss him some more. But the hand on Patroclus’s shoulder pushes down, and Patroclus ends up on his knees.

Patroclus wants to. He wants to share something private with someone who likes him, so he does. He isn’t good at it – Andy smacks him across the face when he accidentally uses teeth. But Andy finishes, and Patroclus feels dizzy.

_I knew you were a good boy,_ Andy says.

* * *

Patroclus isn’t stupid – not in some ways, at least. He knows it isn’t normal or good to let adults touch you. He knows it’s wrong, and that it’s the sort of thing he should tell someone. Sometimes he thinks of the creases around Andy’s mouth and eyes, or his greying hair, or how Andy’s son is in his year at school, and he feels sick. Sometimes, he touches himself.

The next time Patroclus sees Andy, it’s at Andy’s house. Andy’s son Clyde is there, and so is his beautiful wife Eliza. Andy’s wife is slender and blonde and sweet and good with people. Patroclus feels strangely victorious, that he might be Andy’s too.

Andy tells everyone how interested Patroclus was in seeing his fishing equipment, and maybe coming along for a trip that summer. Patroclus knows to go along with it, and hopes he doesn’t look suspicious as he follows Andy into the garage.

He does better this time.

* * *

_Could you drop this by Andy’s office tomorrow?_ Father asks one night. _After school._

It is only an envelope – literally a flimsy excuse.

_I could give it to Clyde,_ Patroclus offers.

_Andy said you might like to see the mayor’s office,_ Father presses.

Patroclus feels lame walking through the officious city hall building in his school uniform and backpack. He thinks Andy will recoil from him – dressed just the same as his son. But Patroclus hardly gives Andy the envelope when he’s pinned against Andy’s big, mahogany desk. Andy devours him.

_Do you love me, Patroclus?_ Andy asks.

Patroclus feels his breath hitch. Patroclus is lonely. Patroclus knows this – has known since he was old enough to know anything. Patroclus knows Father doesn’t like him – hates him, maybe – and that Mama floats away, out of his grasp. Patroclus keeps decent grades because he has nothing else to do but study or run laps at lunch time. Patroclus would give anything to be liked. He would give his grades – hell, he’d run away, drop out of school, live in Andy’s garage. To be loved…

_Yes,_ he whispers, and he means it. If Andy can like him, then Patroclus can love him. Patroclus would do whatever he could to love him, because what were the chances someone important and charming could like him at all? Andy is a fluke, a miracle.

Patroclus would love anyone, maybe. He supposes Andy can see that – Patroclus has never dated, but he knows it isn’t normal to proclaim love after only the third meeting. Patroclus understands Andy sees he’s desperate and lonely, but he is gratified at being chosen at all.

As Patroclus leaves, flushed and pleased and humiliated and in love, he bumps into Clyde.

_What’re you doing here?_ Clyde asks, his nostrils flaring.

_I had to drop something off for my dad,_ Patroclus says quickly.

_Well, you should’ve just given it to me at school._

Patroclus almost conjures the lie about wanting to see the mayor’s office, but instead shrugs, and hurries away.

* * *

Again at Patroclus’s house.

* * *

Andy picks him up from school in his BMW and takes him for icecream.

Andy asks him about school and friends and teachers and homework, and Patroclus almost cries from how good it feels to be seen. Andy drives them to somewhere secluded and quiet, and Patroclus knows it’s because he’s afraid of being caught, but there's a nice view and it feels as if they are alone in the world.

Andy lets him finish his icecream before they do anything else.

_You’ve got a little…_ Andy runs a thumb over the corner of Patroclus’s lips, before pressing it into Patroclus’s mouth to suck. _There we go. Do you like that?_

_Yes. Thank you,_ Patroclus whispers. And he means it. Patroclus loves every part of Andy. If Patroclus was Andy’s, maybe he himself could be loveable.

* * *

Clyde and his friends start picking on Patroclus at school. It’s an expensive prep school, so the bullying is subtle. One day Patroclus comes in, and everyone’s decided he’s gay and weird. He’s always been weird, and people often assume he’s gay, but the two are paired, and it seems to make a difference.

Patroclus is alright at schoolwork, but no one ever wants to partner with him. Patroclus has never been bad at sports, but no one passes to him anymore. Patroclus takes to doing his assignments alone and changing in the stalls.

A rumour starts that Patroclus is being touched up by old Reverend Baker, the school chaplain, who people also think might be gay and weird. The boys snicker when Patroclus kneels to pray in chapel. Patroclus thinks Clyde started the rumour. Patroclus wonders if he would let Reverend Baker do what Andy does to him. He probably would, he thinks. If two people liked him…

Patroclus watches Reverend Baker intently, which doesn’t help his case.

* * *

_Do you love me?_ Andy asks him at the zoo. Patroclus mentioned to Andy how he likes animals, and Andy decided to take him to the zoo in the town over. They still can’t hold hands, but there isn’t so much a chance that they’ll be recognized. People will assume Patroclus is his son, probably.

Andy asks often if Patroclus loves him. Patroclus likes answering – feels it bubble up inside of him, the beating wings of a thousand butterflies. These days, Patroclus is embarrassed by how much unclaimed love there is in his heart, and is thrilled to be able to give it freely. _Yes,_ he says, as always. _Of course I do._

_You’re so young,_ Andy sighs. They stand outside of the lion enclosure. Patroclus swears a lounging lion catches his eye. He feels caught out, for a second, but it is only a lion. _You must be only sixteen or seventeen?_

Patroclus is caught off guard. He has shared a class with Clyde for almost three years; it seems impossible that Andy might not know how old he is. Sixteen seems a world away, seventeen is practically grown up. _I’m almost fifteen,_ Patroclus mumbles. He thought to lie, but Patroclus has always been a lousy liar.

Andy covers his mouth with his hand, as if in shock. Patroclus suddenly feels disgusting – that maybe Andy thought he was seventeen, and Patroclus has deceived him. _Oh, Patroclus…_

_I’m sorry,_ Patroclus says quickly. _I thought you knew._

_You seem older,_ Andy says. _God… You just seem so mature. I can’t believe it…_

Even then, it seems strange. Patroclus is quiet, which could be misconstrued as intellectual, but really it is the teenaged equivalent of hiding in the cupboards when there are guests (Patroclus has outgrown the cupboards). He is tall, but awkward looking. No one else would think he is older.

Later, Tony says the same thing – that he seems mature. It only clicks then that it’s something a man might say to justify fucking someone too young – that they seem mature, an old soul, that they were practically asking for it. But Patroclus doesn’t see it, at the lion’s den.

_Not long before I’m fifteen,_ Patroclus murmurs, as if it makes a tremendous difference.

Andy laughs, and touches his back. _I was going to wait until you were eighteen before we…_ Andy sighs. _I don’t know what to do, now._

_Anytime,_ Patroclus begs. _I want to._

Sometimes the thought of Andy fucking him makes Patroclus sick. Usually it makes him feel wanted.

_Maybe when you’re fifteen,_ Andy muses.

* * *

Mama seems to suspect something. She is watchful around Andy, and looks disapproving when Father speaks of him. Mama seems happy when Andy swings by the house with Clyde in tow. Clyde never comes over, and is outwardly discontent at being there. Somehow Mama coaxes Andy and Clyde into the house when they meant only to drive by. Patroclus stares at the ground, heart racing at the thought that Andy might have him in his room while Clyde drinks tea downstairs.

_Patroclus, you must take Clyde for walk. You boys should go walk at reserve – is pretty. Let men be boring with business,_ Mama urges.

Patroclus expects Clyde to object. That week, Patroclus had been the butt of the joke in the comment sections of several overly-edgy Facebook memes about spiritual leaders and little boys. Patroclus watches Clyde now, considering Mama’s proposition. Clyde looks like his own beautiful mother, but has Andy’s eyes. Patroclus feels a ripple of shame shoot through him – what he does with Andy is disgusting, and he is disgusting, and Clyde would be right to hate him.

_Alright,_ Clyde says, shrugging. _I’ll go with Pat._

Patroclus hastily grabs a few things from upstairs – his phone, a housekey, a jacket. Before he leaves, he sees Andy standing in his doorway expectantly. Patroclus locates a pair of dice and slips them into his jacket pocket – he finds fidgeting comforting, and he likes the weight of them.

_You weren’t gonna leave without saying goodbye, were you?_ Andy asks.

Patroclus feels an explosion in his heart which he is certain must be love. He wishes he could love someone else. He wishes someone else loved him. He imagines that if Clyde could be his friend, he would put a stop to things with Andy. If someone could like him and want him, Patroclus would give them all of his love and not need any in return.

As Patroclus wipes his mouth and descends the stairs, he hopes maybe Clyde will like him.

* * *

Dice, a squabble, a push, a fall.

Patroclus throws up by the body.

* * *

Patroclus confesses to it onsite – babbles to the police about pushing Clyde and not meaning to, and it was over nothing but fucking dice. They bring him in, and Patroclus is frightened, and Father is disgusted, and Andy won’t look at him.

It isn’t so long before the police ask Patroclus about his sexual relationship with Clyde – how he killed him for that ( _a lovers’ tiff, gay panic, just tell us, kid_ ).

_There’s semen in the vomit,_ they tell him.

_It’s not his,_ Patroclus says quietly, his cheeks flaming red.

_The vomit, or the semen?_

_Neither._ Patroclus shudders. He cries, breaks down. He is humiliated, and afraid, and he hates that he will ruin Andy’s life just a little more, but Patroclus cannot think to lie. _It’s Andy’s. Clyde’s dad’s. I mean, it’s my vomit and his… I wanted him to. He didn’t make me._

The officers look at each other and suspend the interview. _Mayor Andrew Opus?_

An officer suggests they take a swab of Patroclus’s mouth, but they don’t. The semen in the vomit can’t be tested because of his stomach acid, and it’s never mentioned at trial that Patroclus sucked the mayor’s cock.

Andy testifies that Clyde disliked Patroclus, thought him odd, suspected something was awry – _I should have trusted my instincts; a father knows._

* * *

A crash. Patroclus races out from his room and down the stairs, and Mama is in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairwell, dead already.

_How could you, Patroclus?_ Father cries. Father is a good liar, but perhaps this is a vehicle for honesty too; now, even in public, Father has a free pass to hate Patroclus.

Father steps away from Mama’s body and throws Patroclus against a wall. Patroclus hits his head hard, and he sobs for the pain and for Mama. Father restrains him, calls the cops.

_Look what you did, Pat,_ Father says, and he doesn’t mean Mama – he means the state of things. He means bad press and bad business and the shame, but Patroclus stares at Mama’s face, frozen in terror.

_I’m sorry,_ Patroclus whispers, because he is.

* * *

Guilty.

* * *

Tony.

* * *

The third time Tony has him, Patroclus understands that this is the way of things. Tony isn’t rough anymore – or maybe it’s only that Patroclus doesn’t put up a fight about it.

Tony isn’t the same as Andy. Andy was suave, and you could tell that once upon a time he had been very handsome, and that now he has a lot of money. Tony has less hair, and a few extra pounds, and Patroclus is his greatest indulgence – his guiltiest pleasure.

Patroclus expects he will love Tony. Patroclus had felt like a warehouse sale of love, before – overstocked with a sentiment no one wanted from him, frantically trying to offload it for almost nothing. Sitting in the bathroom Tony declared ‘Out of Order’ so they could fuck, Patroclus thinks he will give it away to Tony dirt cheap – the price of an occasional nice word or extra snacks. Only, when Patroclus reaches for love, he finds nothing.

Patroclus waits for it to come. Before, he had had oceans of it, the tides of his affection desperate to pull someone into their waters. Anyone. Andy, but it could just as easily have been Reverend Baker or Clyde. Tony is flawed and hurt him, but Patroclus has never been picky.

Eventually, Patroclus realizes his oceans have evaporated, his stores emptied. He can’t think when. Perhaps after Mama died, and Father framed him? When Andy didn’t come to his aid in the trial? Maybe he has only grown up; he is fifteen, now, after all.

Patroclus reaches for memories of Andy, sometimes. They still feel fluttery and warm. It is like he has lost a sense, or had an organ removed in his sleep. He supposes he should grateful, maybe. He remembers how his grades had already started falling, with Andy. Love had coursed through Patroclus – his mind, his heart, his body. It had made him stupid, kept him up long into the night.

But he mourns its loss just the same.

* * *

On Patroclus’s sixteenth birthday, Tony brings him cake and gives him a handjob. Patroclus likes the cake, but not the other.

Patroclus doesn’t like to cum with Tony. It feels like his body is lying, telling Tony he loves him. Tony has never asked for love before. Patroclus had worried over it, his first few months. Now that he no longer anticipates it, the question is raised.

_Do you love me, Patroclus?_ Tony asks as Patroclus savours his cake.

Tony has not beaten him – not since he was wrangled that first time. If he did, perhaps Patroclus’s body would betray him again, make him lie; _Yes_. Instead, he says, _Do you want me to?_

Tony is disappointed. Tony has a wife and kids, so that seems silly to Patroclus – he has more love than he knows what to do with. _I was only asking._

Patroclus doesn’t salt the wound – doesn’t complete his answer ( _No, I don’t love you_ ). It’s not something he’s particularly proud of, though he thinks maybe he should be. It’s weird, that he loved Andy – and wrong and gross and filthy. It would be all those things and more, if he loved Tony. He used to love easily, and now he can’t at all, and he isn’t proud of either, but at least if he loved Tony maybe he could cum without feeling so disgusting. Maybe he would fill his head with stupid thoughts about Tony one day saving him, like a princess from a tower.

But no one is coming for Patroclus, and he is glad to have cake.

_I like the cake,_ Patroclus says softly. He finishes the slice but for a small chunk he balls up in the napkin, and licks his fingers slowly so Tony will like it.

He feels numb, a lot of the time. Sometimes he can only blink back at Tony, and he fears he’s lost his English the way he lost his childhood Russian. A lot of people ask if he’s ‘retarded’, these days. Even Tony has, though he can read Patroclus’s file, so it seems odd he would ask. Sometimes, Patroclus is flooded by bad feelings. He has nightmares, now, but even in the day, a strange feeling will wash over him and make him scream or cry or want to beat himself against the wall. It will flood through him all at once, and Patroclus will tremble from it, try to keep himself quiet. He thinks maybe this is what remains of his love – spoilt, gone bad, an infection.

_Can you put me in solitary for the night without putting it on my record?_ Patroclus asks as he sits back up, licking his fingers once more.

_Don’t know why you care so much about your record when you’re not getting out,_ Tony grumbles.

Patroclus doesn’t know either. He shivers in the cool of the bathroom. _Thanks for the cake, Daddy,_ he says pathetically.

_Alright,_ Tony says tersely. _Alright – solitary, no blemish on your precious record, Killer._

Patroclus’s body jolts at the word, and he feels his numbness threaten to subside to the bad feelings – what love left behind. He was right to ask for solitary. _Thank you, Daddy,_ he whispers.

Tony kisses Patroclus’s mouth before they leave, and when he turns his back, Patroclus retrieves the squashed up portion of birthday cake he had saved and stuffs it into his mouth, as if strawberry sponge cake might absolve him of his shame.

_Cum and cake,_ he thinks to himself. _A whore’s Eucharist._

The thought has a flavour of its own – a bitterness that Patroclus finds he doesn’t mind. He laughs – can’t help it, can’t stop it. Tony looks at him as if he’s mad, and Patroclus ceases laughing, but a peculiar smile sits itself on his lips.

_Psycho,_ Tony says, as if it’s a swear.

Patroclus says his little joke aloud, and Tony’s scowl only deepens, and Patroclus half thinks Tony _might_ beat him, and he feels a rush of dread as excitement. When Tony simply opens the door and lets them out, Patroclus laughs again – a horrible sound that he tries to swallow – and breaks into snickers all the way to solitary.

_You need to get a grip, kid,_ Tony warns.

When Tony closes the door, Patroclus screams and screams and laughs and cries, and by morning he’s all out of words – but why would he need them?

Patroclus is never getting out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary:
> 
> Clyde's dad, Andy, is the mayor and is forming some sort of business relationship with Patroclus's father that Patroclus isn't privy to. Patroclus is told to behave around Andy when he comes over for dinner, and he forms a childish crush on him. Andy comes into his room after a dinner, and begins a sexual relationship with Patroclus (this includes the smack across the face Patroclus referenced in the first chapter).
> 
> Patroclus continues to see Andy in secret. It's hinted that Patroclus's father knows something of the arrangement as at one point he has Patroclus run an unnecessary errand through which he sees Andy.
> 
> Patroclus attends school in the same year as Clyde. There is a hint that Clyde seems to understand that something is going on between Patroclus and his dad, and Clyde instigates bullying toward Patroclus at school.
> 
> Andy asks Patroclus if he loves him, and Patroclus always says yes.
> 
> Clyde one day visits Patroclus's family with his father. At Patroclus's mother's insistence, Clyde agrees to walk with Patroclus around the nearby reserve. As Patroclus grabs things from his room prior to his walk, Andy quickly has Patroclus perform oral sex on him.
> 
> Patroclus accidentally kills Clyde, ostensibly over the dice.
> 
> In questioning, it's brought up that there is semen in the vomit found Clyde's body (they suspect Patroclus forced Clyde to perform oral sex on him). Patroclus admits to his and Andy's relationship, but upon realising Patroclus is implicating the mayor, the police shut down that line of questioning, and never confirm who the semen came from.
> 
> In this time, Patroclus's mother is killed after falling dow the stairs.
> 
> Patroclus is found guilty and sent to juvie, where Tony takes up with him. Patroclus expects he will love Tony like he did Andy, but is shocked to find he doesn't. Patroclus believes he no longer has the ability to love.
> 
> On Patroclus's sixteenth birthday, Tony brings him cake and performs a sexual act on him. Patroclus likes the cake, but not Tony's gesture (he believes when he cums, his body is proclaiming love that isn't there). Tony asks Patroclus if he loves him, and Patroclus admits, in other words, that he doesn't. Patroclus contemplates that he has new feelings he didn't used to have - bad ones. He thinks it's what remains of his love, gone spoilt. Patroclus mourns his lack of love for Tony, in a way. So he can release his bad feelings, he wheedles Tony to put him in solitary, which Tony agrees to. As they depart for solitary, Patroclus makes an offcolour joke in his head, and laughs. He says it aloud, and Tony thinks he's crazy. This is the beginning of the sardonic edge we see Patroclus has in TRC.  
> \--
> 
> An additional note - a key theme in this chapter is the 'love' that Patroclus has for Andy, which is a very particular kind. It's specifically the love you feel when you're around fourteen/a teenager and very vulnerable (the sort that makes people write fanfiction about One Direction kidnapping them and making them their slave). Patroclus has this idea (that makes sense in Andy's context) that love is giving everything, and having it control every part of you. This is the love of Romeo and Juliet (except with a very predatory element) - where you can't sleep because of it, it consumes every thought, attaches itself to every decision. Patroclus, a lonely kid, is particularly susceptible to it.
> 
> This overwhelming, whole body feeling is what he had with Andy, and when Achilles asks for 'more', it's this emotion that Patroclus imagines giving him - one that he no longer has access to.
> 
> \--
> 
> Whew. That's probably the longest AN I've ever written. I hope you liked the chapter.
> 
> I have exams this week, so the next chapter might be a tad behind. Fingers crossed.
> 
> Comments make everything better.


	7. Evidence and Proof Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pelides hires a lawyer in an attempt to get Patroclus out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Sorry about the long wait! All my exams are done, so hopefully I've passed.
> 
> Importantly, this is a 'double update'. That is to say I wrote one huge chapter and have split it into two. I know the struggle is real if you're scrolling this on your phone and you lose your spot, so I thought it would be more practical to divvy it up, but for all intents and purposes it's the same chapter.
> 
> I know chapter 6 is incredibly heavy, and I said some of you might want to skip it, but I would say that the summary at the bottom of chapter 6 would be very helpful in understanding this chapter.
> 
> This chapter is sort of about digging up the truth and trying to prove Patroclus's side of the story. It's a bit dry and repetitive, so forgive me if you can.
> 
> I hope you guys like it! It's good to be back.

_Dear Patroclus,_

_Fuck you._

_From,_

_Achilles Pelides_

* * *

It wasn’t pretty, which was about what Hank had expected. Pelides was framed by decorum and money, but there was darkness in him. Achilles seemed to Hank someone who could knock on your door, compliment your home, and shoot you in the face at point blank range. It was good to have Pelides on your side. But then, Hank wasn’t sure he had that anymore.

“Transfer him back,” Pelides growled through the door of his temporary solitary cell. “Say it was a mistake.”

Pelides spoke like a politician, but his face was grimy with sweat and his knuckles bloody from when he had pounded the walls in rage. He looked unhinged.

Hank sighed heavily from the other side of the door. “Pelides, it really ain’t up to me. I don’t think I’m snitching or nothing when I tell you your daddy’s had a hand in it.”

“What would he know?” Pelides seethed. “ _How_ would he know?”

“He knows whatever your boy wrote him or told him on the phone.”

Pelides’s face twitched through the glass window in the door. “Why would Patroclus be speaking to my father?”

“To inform him the Pelides heir is thinking of extending his stay at TRC? I don’t understand it myself. He’s in a lower security block, and Mr Pelides threw some commissary at him, but I don’t half think he’ll have it as good as he did with you,” Hank offered. “He’s a funny guy.”

Pelides blinked back at him, before erupting into a fit of laughter which was leaps and bounds freakier than his previous pacing and beating the walls. Pelides sobered up enough to catch his breath. “How well did Father know Patroclus?”

“You’d know better than me, surely.”

“Were there secret calls? Was he… was he fucking keeping tabs? What?” Pelides hissed.

“To my knowledge, there was no correspondence beyond your boy telling your daddy to weed him out for your sake. He did it for _your sake_ – your Patroclus. He wasn’t happy about it, neither.”

“Yeah?”

“He cried a bit. It was really fucking weird.” Hank remembered Menoitiades’s tears catching in the lines of his pained smile and shuddered. “I think he was doing you a good turn, and I’m just trying to make sure you don’t fuck yourself over before you get out.”

Pelides nodded behind the glass. “Right.” He smiled a private smile. “Patroclus’s great betrayal at last.” The smile fell off Pelides’s face as he kicked the shit out of the wall, not unlike how he had beat the tar out of Diomedes earlier that day (landing him in solitary).

* * *

_Patroclus,_

_Hank told me why you did it._

_You’re an idiot._

_Achilles_

* * *

_Dear Patroclus,_

_I get what I said was stupid. I wouldn’t have wracked up extra time. It was a dumb idea, and a stupid thing to say, and I get why you did it. I only have two months left, and I wish you’d come back._

_Father gave in the other day. I called him up, and he said fine – if you wanted to be transferred back to my block, he’d see about it with Hank. But Hank says you won’t come back._

_Fuck, Patroclus. Would it be so bad? Father said it’s because your new block is lower security and easier going, and he’s given you commissary money so you don’t need a daddy anymore. Is that it, Pat? It’s not, though. I can’t believe it is._

_I still think about the nights you fucked me. I like fucking you, but I think I miss having you inside me because I can’t trust anyone else at TRC to fuck me – you always want what you can’t have, I guess. If you came back, we could have a few more good nights._

_Achilles_

* * *

_Dear Patroclus,_

_I love that you don’t answer my letters. It feels like you’re right here with me._

_I’m out. My dad threw me a party. You know I realized I never told him I was gay? I mean, obviously he knew we were fucking around, but I guess he thought I’d be straight the second I left TRC. Now I reckon he thinks prison turned me into a fag. He wasn’t bad about it or anything. It’s just funny._

_I’ve enclosed some numbers you need to add to your phone list. If any of the lawyers come in to visit you, you better fucking see them._

_I know my dad already paid you off, but I’ve topped up your commissary. Don’t spend it all at once. Consider it a bribe._

_SEE THE FUCKING LAWYERS._

_Achilles Pelides_

* * *

Achilles Pelides was a shit, Briseis thought. A rich kid with money he didn’t earn and an attitude he shouldn’t get away with. And Briseis had half a mind to handball his file to another lawyer, except it wasn’t Achilles’s file at all.

“He wouldn’t see me,” Briseis said leaning back a little in her desk chair. Achilles looked about her office with its mountains of files in bureaucratic disarray with distaste, and again Briseis pondered how happy she would be if he would fuck on off, except… She rested her hand protectively over Patroclus Menoitiades’s file. 

Achilles rolled his eyes and flicked a strand of golden hair from his brow. “Fucking sounds like him. I can pull some strings – I’ll make sure he’s at the next appointment. Obviously I’ll pay you for your trouble.”

“Obviously.”

Achilles cracked a grin. “Any first impressions from his file?”

“He hasn’t signed an authority for me to discuss the case,” Briseis said coolly.

“He also isn’t the one who contacted you and got you the file, so I guess we’re all in a little bit of a legal grey area. Is it a grey area?” Achilles asked with a smirk. “I don’t know if it is. I’d like it to be.”

Briseis scowled. It was true – Patroclus had not consented to any of this yet, and he didn’t seem to want to. And Briseis would ordinarily respect his wishes and delight in telling an asshole like Achilles Pelides where to stick it, except Patroclus Menoitiades might actually be innocent. Briseis opened his casefile and glanced down at Patroclus’s original mugshot and sighed heavily. “Reading Patroclus’s casefile, I am genuinely confounded by the negligence of his own defence, and the gaps in the investigation. It’s stunning. I’m happy to persist with it if you can get your friend to agree to having me represent him.”

“It’s not on the file,” Achilles drawled tonelessly, “but that boy Clyde – his dad raped Patroclus. A few times, I think. I feel like that’s important. No one else seemed to think it was important to mention at the time; not the police or the lawyers or Patroclus himself. It won’t be in your file.”

Briseis felt Achilles’s eyes on her as she flinched. “Before Clyde’s death?”

“Yeah. He didn’t talk about it much. We were pretty drunk when it finally came up and I didn’t get to clarify anything, but… but yeah. Before, I think.” Achilles crossed his arms defensively over his chest, his face suddenly stiff and menacing. When he glanced up, his eyes landed on the mugshot paperclipped to the inside of the file. “Is that him?”

Achilles leaned forward, angling to get a better look until Briseis capitulated, unclipping the picture and sliding it across her desk – “Have a look,” she grumbled.

Achilles cradled the picture in his hands as if it was precious. “He’s fourteen here?”

“Yep.”

“He looks terrified. He was just a fucking kid.” The boy in the picture had messy dark brown hair and enormous frightened eyes. “It’s funny, isn’t? When you know someone, and see pictures from when they were younger. I know Patroclus as a twenty-three year old man. This…” Achilles tapped Patroclus’s picture absently. “This is fucking embryonic. A kid. A fucking kid. Jesus...”

Achilles handed the picture hastily back to Briseis as if it disgusted him now.

“He was just a kid,” Briseis affirmed. “Kids can get lost in court. I can’t save the boy in the picture, but I’ll do what I can for the man Patroclus is now.”

Achilles shrugged in response, affecting his signature cocky richboy smirk. His little act was, Briseis thought to herself, remarkably less compelling after witnessing his peculiar tenderness for Patroclus. “Good,” he said. He stood up and pulled on his coat. “I’ll pull some strings. Patroclus should see you when you visit. Send my regards.”

* * *

_Dear Patroclus,_

_I fucked another guy. You’re right, you know – I have options out here. I was surprised when he came. He moaned like a bitch in heat – wasn’t used to someone being glad to cum._

_Briseis Antony (that’s the name of your lawyer, you asshole) says you refused to see her. I didn’t want to force it, but I can and I will. She’ll be by again next week, and you’ll sure as hell take the visit._

_I miss you._

_Pelides_

* * *

Patroclus wasn’t so afraid as he was in his picture, and he didn’t seem off his face or withdrawing from anything. Briseis comforted herself with that as she sat opposite Patroclus through a pane of glass. He was lean and tired looking, and maybe a little confused. He blinked a few times upon being ushered into the cubicle until recognition crossed his face.

“You’re the lawyer?” Patroclus asked, eying her suit warily. His voice was oddly rough, though he spoke quietly. Sometimes Briseis’s clients were coiled, ready to strike. Sometimes they paced. Sometimes they beat at the glass or themselves. But there was a stillness and silence about Patroclus. “I’m sorry. Pelides wrote me, but I forgot your name. I wasn’t planning on taking the offer.”

“Pelides doesn’t strike me as someone used to hearing ‘no’,” Briseis said, and Patroclus grinned a little. “Briseis Antony.”

“Patroclus Menoitiades.” Patroclus stared at his hands. “To be fair, I didn’t tell him ‘no’. I haven’t been answering his letters, and I turned away his visit. Pelides would argue, and he doesn’t like to lose. When the officers made me accept the visit, I figured it was him. It was, I suppose.” Patroclus laughed with a strange sort of fondness. “But it’s you.”

“It’s me,” Briseis agreed. “Mr Menoitiades –”

Patroclus flinched. “It’s a cliché, but ‘Mr Menoitiades’ really was my father, and it’s not right on me. Call me ‘Patroclus’ or ‘Pat’. Please.”

Briseis nodded – Pelides had relayed enough that she understood why Patroclus might sidestep his name. “Patroclus. I’ve read your file. It’s not just that I’m on the Pelides payroll – I really think there’s a chance we could get you down to manslaughter, or assault leading to death. _Time served_. I’m not bullshitting you. But we need to reframe the narrative and assemble witnesses and –”

“I’m not getting out,” Patroclus said stiffly. “I’m not. I…” He clutched his head in his hands and sighed. “Pelides… We fucked around a bit. I was a good boy. But this… It’s stupid.”

“It isn’t.” Briseis removed her blazer, hanging on the back on the chair. She wanted Patroclus to understand that she was settling in, bunkering down. “I don’t care why Pelides wants you out. I don’t care about Pelides – not even a little bit. I’ve seen his casefile, and he’s the one that should be here to rot. I care about you.” Briseis pressed Patroclus’s old mugshot against the glass. Patroclus eyed it queasily. “I care about _him_ , and the fact that justice wasn’t done.”

“I looked young, didn’t I?” Patroclus asked quietly. It took Briseis a moment to realise he wanted an answer.

“You did.”

“They said I looked older, but I didn’t.” Patroclus shook his head, as if his mind was an Etch A Sketch. “Pelides is wasting his money.”

“Pelides has money to waste. Look, Patroclus – I get paid whether you talk or not. Why not give me a run down of your side of the story, a couple of leads to chase up, and if it comes to nothing, it comes to nothing. Pelides is stubborn and has money to burn – if you won’t talk to me, he’ll just keep paying me to drive here and back for a year.” Briseis tried for a shrug, but she had never been any good at hiding her feelings, and she felt for Patroclus.

“There’s not much to tell,” Patroclus mumbled. “You’ve got the files.”

“I’ve spoken with Pelides. I get the impression quite a lot didn’t make it into the file.”

Patroclus looked hurt for a moment, before sighing in defeat. “The first time Andy came over…” Patroclus began, and with a peculiar sort of detachment, he detailed everything he knew about the deaths of Clyde Opus and Maria Menoitiades. He spoke in hoarse monotone about love and rape and petty bullying; a fatal push that plagues his dream, and a fall he didn’t bear witness to. Patroclus avoided her eyes, kept them pinned to the table as he detailed the investigation and how his father stacked the deck against him. In the end, Briseis managed to wangle some names out of him for witness statements and character references. 

“I just have one more thing to discuss. There was a sample found by the body – vomit.” Briseis felt her throat tighten, so she went through the motions of finding the lab report, though she knew it by heart. “It was yours, and it contained semen. They claimed the semen couldn’t be identified. It’s too late to call bullshit on that, but would you be willing to testify that it was Andrew Opus’s material, and not Clyde’s?”

Patroclus considered this. “Yeah,” he said dully. “It was. It’s the truth. If it came to it, I wouldn’t lie.” Patroclus hesitated. “I don’t want Andy to get in any trouble, though. If there’s a way to… I dunno. I wouldn’t want him locked up or anything.”

“You would tell the truth? Whatever the case?” Briseis urged.

Patroclus nodded miserably. “I… I was happy to do it. The things with Andy. Would that get him in less trouble?”

“Not a lot.” Briseis didn’t want to acknowledge how sad the idea of Patroclus’s rapist getting in trouble seemed to make him, so she said, “Pelides sends his regards. Is there anything you want me to tell him?”

“No.” Patroclus grimaced. “Communicating with Achilles… It’s not even that he hates to lose – it’s that I hate to win. Best keep quiet and hope for the worst.”

Crying in front of Patroclus would have been unprofessional, so Briseis waited until she was alone in her car.

* * *

**Witness Statement of Ms Jane Li**

My name is Jane Li. I am a primary school teacher. I live on 88 Spring St, Troy. This statement is true to the best of my knowledge.

I taught Patroclus in second grade in 2005. This was a long time ago. I remember Patroclus as I once contacted CPS on his behalf. I began noticing bruising on his arms, and Patroclus once confided in a student who had had an ‘accident’ on the playground that he himself had once wet himself on account of his parents locking the door to his room for a whole day, and refusing to let him out. When I considered this in light of his conduct (Patroclus was particularly quiet, and had difficulty connecting with other children. He would often pretend to have forgotten his hat so he could help me with errands during recess) I worried about neglect or abuse.

To my knowledge, CPS investigated, and little came of it.

I remember meeting Patroclus’s family, and being surprised how well off they were. Patroclus’s mother was Eastern European. When I addressed her, Patroclus’s father would insist she didn’t speak much English, and to speak to him instead. Patroclus’s father detailed that Patroclus was a very different child at home – that he was prone to misbehaving and was incredibly difficult to manage. He said the lock on his door was an attempt to deal with his behavioural problems without resorting to manual punishment. He assured me that the majority of the bruising was self-inflicted.

Something seemed off. I didn’t believe Patroclus’s father about anything. His wife seemed to understand most, if not all, of what was said, and it seemed impossible that Patroclus might be a monster at home and a well-behaved, quiet pupil at school. I did notice less bruising later, and figured the Menoitiadeses had heeded advice from CPS.

* * *

_Dear Patroclus,_

_Thank you for agreeing to see the lawyer. Fuck you for refusing to put me on your visitation list. Fuck you for never writing back._

_Briseis said you made a good impression. She said you looked alright, too – no bruises. It’s funny – I always remember you with bruises. If anyone’s bothering you, tell me or the lawyers, and I’ll take care of it._

_Achilles_

* * *

**Witness Statement of Mr Ryan Owens**

My name is Ryan Owens. I live at 65 Carraway Road, Troy West. I am a student at Sparta College. I was a classmate of both Patroclus Menoitiades and Clyde Opus in 2012.

Clyde and I were good friends. Patroclus was a bit of a loner. He was alright at sport, and he seemed pretty smart. No one properly picked on him until a few months before Clyde’s death.

Clyde instigated a lot of it. I think no one wanted to talk about that after he died. Clyde hardly knew who Patroclus was, then one day he seemed to hate him. Clyde joked about Patroclus having sexual relations with the school chaplain. At the time, that seemed really funny, and that’s when Patroclus sort of became unpopular. But Patroclus also seemed strange, around that time. He seemed to be spacing out, caring less about sport and school.

I don’t remember ever seeing Patroclus alone with Clyde. 

I have provided the appellants with screenshots from the period of bullying.

* * *

Briseis winced as she caught sight of Patroclus’s face. There was a bruise swelling on his left cheek, and he looked more tired than usual.

“Hi,” he said wearily.

“Hi,” Briseis said quickly, trying not to stare. “Pelides is still pissed you won’t see him.”

“Sort of funny,” Patroclus said with a small grin. “He bribed the guards that first time to force me to see you. No reason he couldn’t force me to see him, but he won’t. He’s weird that way.”

“Maybe it’s not weird at all,” Briseis said gently, “to want someone you care about to want to see you.”

Patroclus’s face went blank in an instant, and Briseis almost groaned. Patroclus was generally cooperative, but sometimes they would hit an impasse in their conversation, and Patroclus would become guarded and distant for the remainder.

“Ryan Owens was happy to give a statement,” Briseis said with affected brightness. “I think it’s good to have up our sleeve – back in the day there was too much embellishing by Clyde’s friends. And I went through a few of your teachers – turns out Jane Li called CPS on your behalf when you were eight. You were showing up to school bruised, and told another kid you wet yourself from being locked up in your room.”

Patroclus frowned. “I didn’t know that. That they’d been called.”

“No one spoke to you?” Briseis asked.

“Not that I remember.”

“Alright.” Briseis sighed. “I’m looking into seeing if there’s some record of Andrew Opus being at Skyros Zoo in May of 2012. I’ve approached the zoo, but it’s tricky without a date. Best bet would be a credit card statement, but that’ll mean approaching the Opuses.” Patroclus winced. “So I’ll sit on that for a while. Otherwise we’re counting on your father admitting to perjury. Pelides has told me to wait for his word on that one, whatever that means.”

“It means Pelides might kill my dad,” Patroclus said flatly. “Or am I not allowed to say that?”

“Call it a grey area – he’s not my client.” Briseis rifled through her files to find her notepad, flicking back to their last visit. “I was wondering if it might be worth questioning Tony Holliday –”

“His last name was _‘Holliday’_?” Patroclus asked, grinning wickedly. “Jesus.”

Briseis swallowed and attempted to match Patroclus’s delight at hearing his rapist’s overly normal surname. “Anthony Holliday, in fact. But like I was saying – it might be worth getting in contact. He might remember things you said back then, or it might make the judge go easier on sentencing if he understood what happened in juvie –”

It was strange – Patroclus was still grinning just as wide, but the expression suddenly didn’t fit his face. “You can’t touch Tony. I think he’s technically a missing person.”

“I – huh?”

“I told Achilles what he did to me, and he went missing,” Patroclus said meaningfully. “So probably forget about Tony.”

Briseis froze. Patroclus had a terrible habit of saying appalling things as if they were nothing at all. “Right. Forget about Tony.” Briseis noted Tony down as a ‘dead end’. “I’m sure Pelides has enough common sense, but I’ll post a friendly reminder not to kill Mr Opus.”

“Good idea. What’s the point of me being fiddled if we can’t plead it as a defence to murder, right?” Patroclus drawled, and Briseis felt as if he’d slapped her.

“That’s not… I’m sorry if you feel I’m trivializing what happened,” Briseis offered. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“Sorry,” Patroclus mumbled, resting his face on one hand, tilting his head into the wall of the cubicle. “I know. I know you’re rounding up statements and evidence, setting the scene for me to walk free. But sometimes I can’t help but imagine it stack up, you know? I imagine being found guilty again, but now everyone knows what I… what I did. You know?”

“It… it must be frustrating. I can’t imagine.” Briseis felt dirty, saying that. It was lawyer speak. _Never tell a client you understand, because you don’t, and they’ll tell you all about it. Tell them how frustrating it is, and move on._ Briseis wanted to understand Patroclus. Briseis wished she could reach through the glass and hold him tight, sometimes. She wanted Patroclus to like her and trust her and to talk to her – but that wasn’t her job. Briseis’s job was to get Patroclus out of prison; she didn’t need him to like her. She needed him to trust her just enough, and for him to keep focused. She clicked her pen and pushed on. “Anything else we can get our hands on from that time would be helpful. Diaries, emails. Anything to cement what was happening with you and Andrew Opus.”

“No. No, I didn’t keep a journal, and I never left a trail about Andy. There was…” Patroclus squinted. “My mother kept a journal, maybe. She used to joke that it was her secret novel. Maybe it was. She kept it under the loose floorboard in her room.” Patroclus shrugged. “But I mean, it might have actually been a novel.”

Briseis pulled up floorplans of the house on her phone and had Patroclus point to where the journal would be if it hadn’t been retrieved. As she assembled her things, Briseis hesitated. “I’m not a fan overall of the Pelides method, but… Are you alright? Your face…”

Patroclus ran his fingers over the swelling on his cheek. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Patroclus… I don’t want to get your hopes up too high, but I really am optimistic. Mr Opus isn’t mayor anymore. He isn’t even in Troy, these days – he and his wife divorced. I suspect his status in Troy played a role in the coverup, but he’s lost influence. I even have a lead about a cop who might confirm your allegations against Mr Opus were swept under the rug on purpose. I really think we stand a chance,” Briseis said firmly.

“Winning… I told you how I feel about winning,” Patroclus said teasingly. But he acknowledged Briseis’s concern with a wary smile. “It’s really nothing I can’t deal with – no need to get Pelides involved.” Patroclus cocked his head to the side. He looked oddly peaceful. “I’d hate for you to worry yourself over something as stupid as this.”

“A man hit me, once,” Briseis said, her voice taut. “I was seventeen, and we had a home invasion. I had a bruise like yours. I still have nightmares about it. It hurt. It’s not trivial.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” Patroclus blinked stonily back at her. He seemed sad, but also something else. “It hurts less… you get used to it. Nothing can hurt me for the first time anymore. You build defences or lose feeling or… or something. The first..." He grinned a little. Patroclus's grins, Briseis had learned, rarely meant anything good. "The first is always... I think about Pelides, sometimes. But it’s Andy in my dreams.” He laughed softly. “Aren’t I an ungrateful slut?”

Briseis flinched as she packed away Patroclus’s files into her bag. “Would you want me to get used to it?” she asked reproachfully.

“No, I wouldn’t.” Patroclus shifted in his seat, looking up to meet Briseis’s black eyes. “But it’s different,” he said simply. “You know it is.”

Sometimes Briseis imagined freeing Patroclus would be like letting loose an animal from a zoo – having survived years of captivity, he would die after a day or two of freedom, stepping out into oncoming traffic or falling under the allure of injectable oblivion. 

The thought did no good, and Briseis tried her best to suppress it. She had a job to do.

* * *

_Dear Patroclus,_

_After what you told Briseis, we paid off the owners of your old house to search for the diary you mentioned. You were right – your dad didn’t know where it was, because it was still there, under the floorboard._

_It confirms your mom was worried about you, and that she was afraid of your dad. Briseis will run you through it, but it’s good evidence. We’ll be getting psych reports, so don’t fuck around about it when someone comes in to pick your brain open. It’s just to confirm you aren’t a psychopath._

_Briseis said maybe you were being turned out – she was worried. Sounds like you – freaking out at the slightest hint of good news. I get you don’t want to talk to me, but I can still take care of it, if you need – if you’re in more trouble than you want to be in._

_I had a guy fuck me, last week. He didn’t feel like you. He couldn’t give it to me the way I wanted it._

_I still want you, Patroclus._

_Pelides_

* * *

**Witness Statement of Senior Constable Diane Hunter**

My name is Senior Constable Diane Hunter. I live on 47 Aries Drive, Troy. This statement is true, to the best of my knowledge.

This statement is in regards to the investigation of Patroclus Menoitiades eight years ago (2012). At this time, I was a constable at Troy Police Station. I was with the investigation on Menoitiades’s day of arrest, and for several days after. I was later taken off the case, and had no subsequent involvement in the investigation.

On the 7 of June 2012, I was present during a recorded police interview with Menoitiades. His father and then Senior Constable Bert Hammer were also present. I remember enabling the recording process myself. I remember this interview largely because of the peculiar facts – Menoitiades, a fourteen year old boy accused of murder, claimed that then Mayor Andrew Opus had been molesting him. This came out as Menoitiades had vomited not far from the victim’s – Clyde Opus’s – body, and our labs reported semen in the sample. At the time, we were considering that Menoitiades had forced the victim to perform oral sex prior to his death, and that the vomit was Clyde’s. When Menoitiades made allegations against Andrew Opus, the recording was shut off and the interview suspended. I submitted that we would conduct further testing on the sample and take swabs of Menoitiades’s and the victim’s mouths, but I was shortly taken off the case.

I had no knowledge of misconduct at the time. I did not know that the samples were never tested any further, or that the interview was erased from the record. I have submitted to the appellants records that Patroclus Menoitiades was present at Troy Police Station on the day of this interview, and this statement in favour of it having occurred.

* * *

_Dear Patroclus,_

_Merry Christmas._

_I’ve put in for college. Weird to think I’ll be in with a bunch of eighteen year olds, but I thought I’d make a go of it. My father’s getting into real estate development and shit, so I’ll study commerce, and might get to play some football._

_You reckon you might join me when you get out?_

_Briseis says everything is going well. With the diary, if we can get your dad to admit to perjury, we’ve got a good case for arguing her death was suicide or even him. Might take some Pelides muscle. I mean hey – you could always write back if you don’t want me to do it, right?_

_Imagine that._

_Speaking of Pelides muscle, I hope you like your new cellie – the stuff Briseis was saying had me worried. Ant’s a good guy – family friend. Pretty, too, but he’s a good fighter, so if anyone bothers you, tell Ant and I’ll have some faces rearranged._

_Pelides_

* * *

Antilochus lounged back in his bunk with a sigh. Patroclus was an easy enough cellie to have; he was clean, kept to himself, and he was quick to drop to his knees. All around, it wasn’t a huge imposition to keep an eye on him.

“I don’t want trouble with Pelides,” Antilochus murmured as Patroclus took his cock in his hand. “If he has dibs, I don’t wanna undercut that.”

“You don’t wanna undermine Pelides’s… ‘dibs’?” Patroclus purred with an arched eyebrow.

“Aw, fuck man. You know what I mean. I like Achilles. I don’t wanna get on his badside.” Patroclus jimmied Antilochus’s pants down and licked a line up his cock.

“Is that right?”

“Yeah?” Antilochus winced. _I need you to keep an eye on a guy. Patroclus Menoitiades. He gets himself in trouble. I’d appreciate if you’d keep him safe._ Pelides had seemed oddly earnest. Antilochus knew Pelides as a high school god and drug prince, but he also remembered how passionate and tender he could be when they messed around after football practice. Antilochus imagined what it might look like to be loved by Achilles Pelides. As Patroclus pressed a kiss into the base of his cock, it seemed a shame Pelides’s love might be wasted.

 _Don’t let him hurt himself,_ Pelides had told him on the phone. _His wrists and his fucked up voice… I’m asking a lot, but I’ll pay it back. Keep an eye out._

“Achilles is being very demanding of you,” Patroclus said softly to Antilochus’s cock. “Surely he wouldn’t want me to leave you hanging?”

_Do you reckon he… fuck, man. Do you reckon he thinks about me?_

It was a peculiar strain of faith – the belief that Patroclus had enough unbroken pieces left rattling around inside him to feel much for anyone, let alone to love Achilles Pelides. Antilochus, like Pelides, found himself looking for signs to decipher – an intonation, a glance away. The way he kept all of Pelides’s letters in a bundle under his mattress. The way he got nervous and screwed up his eyes tight in concentration before his lawyer’s visits. Antilochus hadn’t been sure if he was lying when he assured Pelides that in spite of refusing to write or call, Patroclus had feelings for him. Patroclus loved Achilles, maybe. But he didn’t want to, and did his best not to.

Antilochus caved, as he always did, and let Patroclus suck him. Patroclus seemed bizarrely grateful to do it, and Antilochus was only a man.

“Do you want me to…?” Antilochus asked after he was done.

“Nah.” Patroclus picked himself up and climbed down to his own bunk – presumably to jerk off.

“Hey… How’s the shoulder?”

“It’s not throwing heat so much, so I guess it’s healing up.”

Antilochus didn’t have the balls to tell Pelides that before he was put on Patroclus Patrol, one of the guys gave Patroclus a tattoo. Antilochus could do babysitting, but he didn’t want to have to carry out a prison hit.

“What did they give you to wipe you out long enough to ink you?” Antilochus asked.

“Why?”

“So I can get some of it – sans the tatt.”

Patroclus laughed. “I dunno. I just took it.”

“That’s pretty fuckin’ dangerous, Patty Cakes,” Antilochus drawled.

“I had no idea,” Patroclus deadpanned. “Thank god nothing serious happened.”

Antilochus shivered. Patroclus hadn’t had much of a choice but to show him the tattoo at some point, and it was a real fucking doozy. Antilochus had asked if anything else had happened while he was passed out, and Patroclus had only shrugged – _I got tested the other day. I’ll tell you if anything shows up._

“Do you ever think about Pelides?” Antilochus asked quietly. “I reckon he’s missin’ you.”

Antilochus felt his ears redden as he heard Patroclus muffle his laughter into his pillow and cease stroking his cock. “When I’m jerking off, Ant?”

“Just… I dunno. Fuckin’ generally.”

Patroclus sighed below him, and Antilochus half wished he could see Patroclus’s face. “If your family sat an icecream cake on the kitchen table for you, would you want a slice?”

Antilochus grinned, thinking what he wouldn’t give for a break from prison cuisine. “Fuck yeah.”

“Except you’re in prison,” Patroclus said coldly. “And it’ll melt and go to waste. So there’s no point them putting it out, and there’s no point wanting it. I’ll be here for life, and if I do get out, it won’t take Pelides long to realise a prison boy isn’t much use outside. I shouldn’t lead him on to think otherwise.”

“You’re real fucked up, you know?” Antilochus said. Then, “But wouldn’t it be nice – if you got out and could see for yourself?”

Patroclus didn’t reply, and Antilochus laughed softly to himself as he heard Patroclus resume jerking off. He wondered if it was one of his flimsy signs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Part 2 should already be up. These chapters were written in a bit of a haze, so please tell me if I've made any errors.


	8. Evidence and Proof Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: This is a double update! So if the last thing you remember happening was a Patroclus centric chapter about his life pre TRC, go back to Evidence and Proof Part 1. I split this chapter because it's so long, but I've posted them at the same time because I've kept y'all waiting.
> 
> I know these chapters are a bit dry. Even if you skim these, the next chapter should be the finale, and I hope you'll stick around for it <3
> 
> Thanks!

Markus Menoitiades had had a good run, maybe. He hadn’t established a dynasty – but that had never been on the cards. He had got what he needed out of Maria, and he was a fool to think giving her a kid was a good idea; she wasn’t fit to raise dinner, let alone an heir. Markus couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he knew Patroclus wouldn’t succeed him (wouldn’t succeed, full stop). Maybe in the womb. Maybe when he babbled in Martian with his mother. Maybe when he started carrying himself like a faggot. Maybe when he killed the mayor’s son.

Clive?

No. Clyde, wasn’t it?

Handcuffed to the interview room table, Markus laughed to himself. Andy Opus’s boy had had the look of an heir, and Patroclus had killed him without even meaning to. And Patroclus had sat at this very table and confessed to  _ everything  _ – killing the boy and sucking his daddy’s wrinkly old cock; every  _ damn  _ thing. It had taken some shuffling to fix up.

Menoitiades stared at the scrap of paper the constable had handed him –  _ I advise you make this your phonecall.  _ A number without a name. Markus sighed and leaned back on his chair. Just fuck.

Whoever’s number he had called was expecting him – the dial barely rang once before a young man’s voice filtered through the earpiece. “Hello? Mr Menoitiades?”

Markus didn’t recognize the voice. Any idea that they were on his side flew out the window. “Speaking. Was this a setup?”

The voice on the other end chuckled. “If you have to ask…”

“Who the fuck are you? What do you want?”

The man on the other end seemed to genuinely contemplate this. “Achilles Pelides. Ring a bell?”

Markus tensed, involuntarily straining against the cuffs. “I have no beef with the Pelides family. I transport your goods just the same as anyone else’s.”

“You have no beef with my dad,” Achilles corrected him. Achilles spoke with private school refinedness. Patroclus had spoken similarly, Markus thought, but where Achilles achieved a sense of authority with his careful speech, Markus’s own brat had only ever sounded snotty. “I’m afraid we have a mutual interest. Patroclus.”

Markus almost laughed aloud from the ludicrousness of it. “Pat’s in prison.”

“You fucking bet he is,” Pelides snapped. But of course, Markus recalled, a few years back Achilles Pelides had been put away too. “I believe we have you to thank for it. Or are you gonna deny it?”

Markus couldn’t help it – he barked a laugh, loud and ugly. Patroclus, who for all intents and purposes was as dead as Clyde and Maria, haunted him still. “You got me raided over Patroclus?”

“Yep. How does it feel, to be set up?” Pelides asked, his voice chillier and more deliberate than Markus remembered old Peter Pelides’s ever being. He took after Thetis Nereus, he thought – that psychotic bitch with her whorehouses.

“Why’d I get your number – just to listen to you gloat?” Markus asked impatiently.

“Hmm. Tempting. But I can gloat anytime. And I will. But ideally, I’ll be bargaining for you to admit to perjury. I’ll need you to recant your statements from 2012, and tell the fucking truth. You see, I want Patroclus out. I want him moved in with me, living in a fucking McMansion while you rot around in prison for at least the next decade.” Markus shuddered – it wasn’t just Thetis in him. It was her cruelty partnered with Peter’s politician’s façade – not a sheep in wolf’s clothing, Achilles Pelides was a monster in a lion’s skin.

“Why would I do that  _ and  _ cop a ten year stay in the slammer, huh?” Markus snarled.

“Ah. Isn’t it something – thinking you know the worst, only to realise how bad it can get?” Achilles asked, his voice poised to strike. “You think the police have raided you and found the drugs. And they have. And that’ll get you time. But they’ve also found a stash of child porn. They’re pretty unimpressed, Markus,” Achilles said with a disapproving cluck of his tongue.

Markus felt his stomach drop through the floor. “I don’t… What the fuck? I don’t even have any fucking –”

“Imagine killing a boy on accident and thinking that’s the worst thing that could happen to you,” Achilles Pelides murmured. “Imagine turning yourself in and worrying you might get charged with manslaughter, only for your father to pin you for not one, but two murders. I imagine this feels about a fraction as bad as that, Mr Menoitiades.”

“What’s your offer, then?” Markus asked, his knuckles white as he tightened his hand around the receiver.

“Well, if you don’t admit to perjury, I guess I’ll instruct Patroclus’s lawyer that you were a sick fuck who liked little kids, and we’ll see if that’ll help our case. It might, it might not – we’ll see,” Achilles said carelessly. “Or you tell the truth – or a version of the truth I agree with – and I make the kiddie porn charges disappear. And you’ll do time for the drugs, but I don’t give a fuck about that.”

Markus laughed. Patroclus had grown up to be a good lay, apparently. That was something, he supposed. “Y’know, I remember thinking Patroclus was a faggot. And when Andy looked sideways at him, I figured that was as good as I’d get out of him. Should’ve stuck him under your nose, huh? Clearly he has talents I never gave him credit for –”

“You knew? About…?” Achilles asked, and all at once he sounded like a kid. He sounded concerned –  _ weak.  _ Achilles must have realized this, for he cleared his throat and pressed on without waiting for an answer. “Will you do it or not? You don’t have all night.”

Markus grinned to himself. He had always wanted a son like Achilles.

“Your daddy know you’re doing this?”

“I have Pelides resources at my disposal, if that’s what you’re asking,” Achilles bit.

“I bet he’s proud. I’ve never been proud of Patroclus.” Markus imagined maybe there was more to that thought, but when he reached deeper, there was still nothing much – a lick of contempt, a slight repulsion, a hint of regret. Markus shrugged; he had had a good run. “I suppose I’ll be writing a new statement.”

There was a sigh of relief on the other end, as if Achilles had been holding his breath, and then the dial tone rang flat in Markus’s ear.

* * *

**Witness Statement of Mr Markus Menoitiades**

My name is Markus Menoitiades. I’m currently on remand at TRC. I used to work in transport. I am Patroclus Menoitiades’s father.

I had a strained relationship with my son in 2012. I may have been misleading in my co-operation with the investigation. What I am saying here is the truth.

I was never close to my son. He was not the son I imagined I would have, and as he grew older, it became apparent that he was probably gay. We’ve never talked about it, but that’s what I thought. I noticed in 2012 that Andy Opus had an interest in my son. I didn’t discourage it; Andy was a good man to have in your pocket, and we had business arrangements together. Patroclus only alleged that Andy was molesting him during the investigation of Clyde Opus’s death. I never witnessed this occur, but I concede there were opportunities to do so. Maria Menoitiades, my late wife, suggested on several occasions that something of the sort was happening. When he came over, Andy always used the upstairs bathroom, which was near Patroclus’s bedroom, and it made Maria uneasy how long he would take up there. He used it the day of Clyde’s death, before Patroclus and Clyde set off for the reserve. 

I think a part of me suspected something, but I figured Patroclus was probably gay anyway. I personally discouraged Patroclus from detonating that particular bomb in court – about Andy molesting him. The lawyers and police never brought it up, even though he let it loose in a recorded interview. I was a part of the cover up, but I think Andy had a lot of sway over a lot of people, back then.

On July 6 th 2012, my wife Maria died from a fall on the stairs. Of course, my son was already under investigation for one murder – this confirmed in my mind that he had done it. But unlike I claimed in 2012, I did not see him push her down. Maria was often mentally unwell, and in hindsight, it is very likely this was suicide. But in my grief I blamed Patroclus, and gave misleading evidence.

Patroclus does not have any particular behavioural issues, as I alleged during the initial trial. There is something of his mother in him – he used to be odd around people, shy, distant – but he never got in any trouble with other kids, or with us at home. I wasn’t cut out for fatherhood, and Maria sometimes got stuck staring at the walls for days. When Patroclus was a kid, we’d lock him in his room sometimes with some food and water to keep him from following us around. Patroclus rarely resisted being locked in his room – at most he might cry about it. I blew it out of proportion, saying we were scared of him, locking him in at night.

* * *

_ Dear Patroclus, _

_ Your dad’s agreed to admit to perjury. Briseis has probably told you, so no matter what I say, I guess. Your dad’ll go so far as to admit the two of you had bad blood, and that he blamed you for your mother’s suicide, which was why he framed you for it as murder. He’ll say a lot of the negative feelings were due to your sexuality. He’ll say something about genuinely believing you were harassing Clyde, but having a change of heart. _

_ Briseis reckons it’s a good bet. _

_ Looking forward to seeing you, _

_ Achilles _

* * *

“He knew?” Patroclus stared at Briseis with cultivated expressionless. Briseis felt her insides knot up. “Briseis… Did my dad know Andy and I were…?”

Briseis shrugged her narrow shoulders. “It seems likely. On examination – when we press for absolutes… I think it’ll come out that he had a pretty good idea. I’m sorry, Patroclus.”

Patroclus’s hands trembled until he gave them purchase in his hair, his forearms shielding his face from Briseis’s view. His whole body seemed to shudder, his breaths shaking through his chest. Briseis once again wished they were not divided by glass – wanted to reach out and hold him.

_ Nothing can hurt me for the first time anymore. _

Briseis wished that was true.

It was a few minutes before Patroclus reemerged. There were no tears, but his eyes were frantic, the mask askew. 

“I don’t know why that bothers me,” Patroclus said, staring anywhere but at Briseis. “I just… Fuck…”

“I hate him,” Briseis said quietly. “I had to talk to him, and the way he… I just hate him. I probably shouldn’t say that, as a lawyer, but it’s the truth.” Briseis met Patroclus’s eyes. “I’m sorry he’s your father, and I’m sorry that we have to deal with him as a witness.”

Patroclus only nodded, fixing his mask – deadening his gaze, slackening his mouth, relaxing his forehead. “I suppose I knew he… I didn’t realise I hoped…” Patroclus sighed, clearly frustrated with himself. “Never mind. Is that everything?”

“I’m due to meet with Eliza Opus. I tried to get my hands on Andrew Opus, but he’s gone on vacation overseas.”

“Oh.”

“That actually bodes well for us – it looks like he’s running. And with Eliza having divorced Andrew, there’s a good chance she’ll spill his secrets. If I can get confirmation about that day at the zoo, then cross reference it with your attendance at school, surely we’ve got something.”

“Eliza agreed to see you?” Patroclus asked shakily.

“It wasn’t easy,” Briseis said softly, “but yes. Patroclus… the truth has a way of bubbling to the surface. Eliza Opus was married to Andrew for twenty years. She knows something.”

“She was kind,” Patroclus murmured. “Don’t. Don’t… don’t bother Eliza. She lost her son.”

“You’ve lost your life, Patroclus.” Briseis looked at Patroclus without flinching. He looked better than he had before – there had been no more bruises since Pelides put Patroclus in with Ant. But Briseis knew about Patroclus’s wrists, and why his voice was often hoarse. Patroclus was handsome, Briseis thought, but he looked older than his years, and bore scars from split lips and beatings to his face. Sometimes Briseis considered it was too easy to think a scar is only a mark, but she understood Patroclus’s marks were a partial map of violence and trauma.

In law school, Briseis had read Robert Cover’s ‘Violence and the Word’. One of his arguments was that the violence inflicted upon inmates is not simply a matter of procedure, but ordained. It was not merely the other prisoners who hurt Patroclus; it was the judge and the lawyer and Mr Menoitiades and Andrew Opus and even lovely Eliza Opus. Adults had swarmed a fourteen year old boy, and decided it would be okay if he was hurt and violated and maddened in a cage for the rest of his life. 

“Eliza Opus will feel uncomfortable. I’ll ask her to dig around for bits of evidence, and I’ll force her to relive the worst months of her life to get the man responsible for her son’s death out of prison. She’ll feel like shit for a while. And I care a little about that, but not very much, because if I don’t follow through on this, you might die in here,” Briseis said slowly, attempting to keep her voice strong. “I think I can do it, Patroclus,” she said, and she hated that her voice shook because she meant what she said. “I think I can get you out alive. And it’s in my grasp, but if it slips through my fingers because I didn’t pester a witness… I would never forgive myself. Please let me try.”

“Alright,” Patroclus whispered. “Fine. Alright… I…” Patroclus looked passed Briseis at something far away. “Do you really think I might get out?” he asked in a small voice.

“I have to manage expectations. There’s a possibility you won’t – of course there is. But if I can get what I need from Eliza, I think there’s a good chance. Clyde died because you pushed him during an adolescent scuffle; he isn’t dead because you coerced him into sex and murdered him. The truth should be heard – for your sake, and Clyde’s sake, and Eliza’s sake.”

“Alright.”

Briseis smiled in spite of herself; today was the first time Patroclus had acknowledged that he might be getting out.

* * *

Eliza Opus lived the life of a retired beauty queen; she made pageant outfits and coached occasionally, and attended book clubs and pottery classes and cocktail soirees. She maintained long nails and luxurious blow waved hair, and sometimes she came home at the end of the day and drank herself stupid, only to wake up bruised in a mess of glass or books or ceramics, because some days it occurred to Eliza that her son was dead, and things needed to break.

Briseis Antony was not late, but Eliza felt as if she had been waiting for the young lawyer to arrive for  _ days  _ – Eliza lingered by the front door, checking and double checking she had the bank statements and screenshots and emails. When had Briseis called? Monday? And it was Friday now. It was Friday now, and Briseis would enter Eliza’s home and collect evidence that the boy who took Clyde deserved to be free while her son rotted in the ground.

Eliza thought of that often – rotting. Clyde had been beautiful like her. Eliza had felt too hollow to speak up about what to do with the body, but she wished now that they had cremated him. Some nights she imagined her beautiful boy bloated and melting, or shriveled and unrecognizable. Eliza sometimes looked up decomposition, imagining her Clyde decaying beneath the earth. It helped keep her thin, at least.

_ Is it possible that your ex-husband was ever sexually involved with Patroclus Menoitiades? _ Briseis had asked her on Monday, eight years after her son was buried. Eliza had dropped her glass on the kitchen floor – another casualty. 

_ How dare you. He killed our son – why would Andy –  _

_ Before. We think,  _ Briseis had insisted over the phone,  _ that the semen in Patroclus’s vomit was Andrew’s. Patroclus made the allegation at the time, but we have evidence the police erased it from the record, and his team refused to pursue it. Please. I tried approaching Andrew Opus, and he’s left the country – _

Eliza had hung up on Briseis, and picked up the shards of glass. 

Andy had been fucking Patroclus, then. She turned the thought over (and over and over and over) in her mind, waiting to feel the sick stab of shock or betrayal or  _ something _ , but she felt nothing except the sharp point of a shard of glass as she pressed it purposefully into the tip of her index finger.

Andy had been fucking Patroclus…

It sang as fact in Eliza’s mind. The sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, Clyde is dead and her husband had raped a teenage boy. Andy had been hurting Patroclus.

Had he?

Eliza remembered Patroclus – tall and shy and agreeable. She recalled thinking Patroclus seemed flustered and starstruck around Andy, but it wasn’t so unusual – Andy had that effect on people.  _ That boy has a crush on you _ , she had teased Andy when they were alone in bed, and Andy had only grinned back at her.  _ Well, he can’t have me. _

Had Patroclus liked Andy? He had seemed to. If they were fucking, he probably liked that too. And Clyde was rotting in the ground – surely Patroclus should rot too. Even if Patroclus hadn’t sexually harassed her son as it seemed at the time, it didn’t change the fact that Clyde was dead.

Eliza felt sick and dizzy, and pressed the shard deeper into her finger until the skin gave way. She remembered the trial – sitting there every day, numb as she watched them destroy Patroclus in court. He had never stood a chance. Not after his mother died suspiciously the following month, and not when his defence was that it was a squabble of dice

Patroclus’s father only occasionally attended proceedings. He had once approached Eliza, and she had been so shocked that she had been unable to walk away. She almost cried out for Andy when Markus Menoitiades shot her a private smile –

_ You don’t have to worry about Patroclus. He’ll get what he deserves. _

She had felt the same nauseous feeling then as she did now. She remembered smiling like the pageant queen she had been, and thinking to herself,  _ That boy has no one in the whole world. _

She had called Briseis back an hour later, and invited the lawyer to her beautiful home rather than a coffee shop because Eliza didn’t want to drive - she wouldn’t be sober enough.

_ If he killed his mother… That’s what I thought,  _ Eliza had muttered to Briseis on the phone.  _ If he killed Maria, then he’s a killer - he meant to kill Clyde. _

_ We don’t think he had anything to do with Maria’s death,  _ Briseis had said softly.  _ 107 Douglas Parade, wasn’t it? At 12:30 on Friday? _

And so Eliza sat on the sofa at 12:28, watching the door, three drinks in, refreshments and evidence on the table. 

Patroclus had had no one in the world, back when Eliza put Clyde in the ground. When Markus Menotiades had approached her those years ago, she had felt sick for days because it occurred to her that had Clyde been in Patroclus’s position, she would have loved her beautiful monster till the end. Clyde could have killed Patroclus and Andy both, and she would have supported him until her last breath.

Patroclus, Eliza thought, needed a mother. And Eliza couldn’t be that, and neither could Briseis, but maybe they could get him what he deserved.

* * *

**Witness Statement of Eliza Opus**

My name is Eliza Opus. I live on 107 Douglas Parade, Troy. I make custom costumes for pageants and figure skating. I am Clyde Opus’s mother.

In 2012, when my son was killed, I performed all too many interviews. But none of them asked the questions Ms Antony has put to me. If she had asked me back then, I would not have answered. But things have changed. No facts I have given in prior statements are false, but these are the answers to the unasked questions.

In 2012, my ex-husband formed a business relationship with Mr Menoitiades. He was very willing to engage with their family, in spite of not seeming close with either of the parents. I thought he might encourage Clyde to befriend Patroclus, but he never did.

It was around this time that Clyde came to bully Patroclus. My son had a strong personality. I have seen the evidence of this, and don’t contradict it, but I was shocked at the time that Clyde might have teased someone over their sexuality. People thought I was naïve when I mentioned it during the initial investigation, but Clyde’s favourite uncle was my brother Keith, who is gay. I was not sticking my head in the sand when I said that Clyde was not homophobic, and that it was out of character for him to bully a fellow student on that basis.

When it was alleged that Patroclus had sexually assaulted my son, it made some sense that Clyde might bully him over that. I didn’t think about it for a long time.

This year, Ms Antony approached me and posited that Andy had been assaulting Patroclus prior to my son’s death.

The day after Clyde’s death, Andrew Opus cleaned the interior of his BMW – a task usually performed by his mechanics after services. This did not seem unusual to me, as no one was accusing Andy of murder. I imagined it was a peculiar grieving ritual.

In 2016, I found out my then husband Andrew Opus was texting boys through a hookup app. In two chats, the person on the other end claimed to be underage, and Andrew continued sending and soliciting sexual images. Although I considered this to be some sort of midlife crisis, there was little keeping Andy and I together, and we settled our divorce the next year. I never reported this to authorities, but retained screenshots in case I needed them for the divorce.

Upon contact with Ms Antony, I have reviewed statements from the bank account I once shared with Andy. Sure enough, there was a transaction on 11 May 2012 suggesting two tickets (an adult and a student) had been purchased for Skyros Zoo. Clyde was at school that day. I have been informed that on that day, Patroclus was marked absent.

This has shifted how I view the events that led to the death of my son. It is my belief that if Clyde suspected this was happening, he may have taken it out on Patroclus at school. And if a stupid fight broke out over dice at the reserve that day – as Patroclus always says – I doubt it was about that at all, for my son.

* * *

_ Dear Patroclus, _

_ It’s been a year, now, so I guess you were right about this shit taking time. _

_ Briseis says you get on great with Ant. Got me worried, if I’m honest. _

_ We’re having a suit made for your hearing. I won’t go, if it’ll freak you out. _

_ I know you lose your mind when things look like they might be going well. Please don’t go picking fights. I know that doesn’t mean much. You can talk to me. Fuck, Pat – you could call me, if you feel like shit.  _

_ I’ll be pissed if Briseis catches you bruised up again. I’ve also put the fear of god in Ant, so think of him before you do anything. _

_ Achilles _

* * *

“My visit to see Eliza Opus went better than I imagined,” Briseis said gently. Patroclus couldn’t look her in the eyes, which was about what she expected. Patroclus only seemed to perk up when things looked to be going rocky. “She had evidence to support what you told me about Andrew Opus. And you’re right - this will hurt her. But it’s the right thing, and sometimes the right thing hurts.”

“Alright,” Patroclus mumbled.

“I’m sorry it hurts you, Patroclus,” Briseis said, and for the first time since he sat down, Patroclus looked at her.

“I’m alright. Sorry. I just… I don’t mean to be ungrateful,” he said. He looked ashamed, and Briseis wished he didn’t.

“I don’t think you’re ungrateful. I think you’re hurting.” Patroclus shook his head violently, and Briseis sighed. “You told me once that you think people hurt less, the more pain they’re dealt. But I don’t think you do. Not really.”

“You get numb,” Patroclus muttered. “It gets easier -”

“I don’t think you’re numb. I don’t think it’s easy. I wouldn’t put you through this if I didn’t think there was something better for you. I want you to feel good - or at least not feel bad.” Briseis couldn’t pinpoint when Patroclus’s case subsumed her life. Around the office, the other lawyers teased her about Patroclus being her life’s work, her great passion project. It was easy enough to deflect - Pelides money wasn’t to be scoffed at - but Briseis felt warm when she thought about Patroclus being free of TRC. And Pelides… “Pelides is still obsessed with you. Have you considered how you’ll handle that, if you get out?”

“Obsessed with me?” Patroclus asked with a hint of amusement.

“I don’t know what else to call it. You want to shed some light?” she asked, eyebrow raised.

“No. No, obsession would about make sense,” Patroclus said with a hint of a smile. “He’s insane. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“An impartial observer might think he’s in love with you,” Briseis said.

Patroclus shrugged. “Obsession is the love of crazy people.”

“You don’t answer his letters.”

“Feeding delusions is actually bad for -”

“Patroclus… He wants to know if he can come to the trial. He wants to drive off into the sunset and take you home with him. Are you gonna let him?”

Patroclus’s smile dissolved. “Pelides bought you. If I get out, then he bought my freedom and me too,” he snapped. “He can come to the trial - watch them talk about me and Andy and how my dad pimped me out for favours. I’ll do whatever he wants -”

“Patroclus,” Briseis said quietly. “I’ll try to get costs from the state. I… I’ll stop charging the Pelides retainer. If it’s about costs…” Briseis winced. She should have taken the case pro bono. She had no qualms about taking Pelides money, but she hadn’t stopped to think…

Patroclus shook his head tiredly. “I don’t know what I’ll do when I get out,” he whispered. “And I don’t want him to see the trial, even though he’s paid for everything down to my suit.” Patroclus flexed his fingers, and Briseis saw how they trembled. “I try not to think,” he said croakily. “I try not to think about getting out. He’ll be disappointed, Briseis. I’ll give him everything I can, and it won’t be enough. Fuck. Fuck, we shouldn’t talk about that - about him, and getting out. What did Eliza say?”

Briseis went through the motions of running through the case with Patroclus, who only seemed to be half listening. Before she left, she hesitated. “Pelides asks about you whenever he calls the office. I never say much. Should I relay anything on?”

Patroclus swallowed and closed his eyes. “No. No - nothing.”

* * *

_ Patroclus. _

_ Please write something. I won’t pull the pin on everything, but fuck – will you just never see me? Briseis reckons there’s a real shot of everything going through. The judge who put you away is dead (not me, I swear), and we’ve got a gay judge – would you believe it? I reckon that’s a good thing, and Briseis agrees. And I won’t come to the hearings, but after? Will you see me at least once? _

_ Achilles. _

_ PS I attached a picture. It was from your mother’s diary. Hopefully the officers will let it through. _

* * *

Antilochus watched as Patroclus stared at yet another of Pelides’s love letters and groaned.

“You not gonna reply, even now?” Antilocus asked wearily.

“I won’t make him happy,” Patroclus said. “Because he can’t make me happy. There’s not enough left of me.” Patroclus sighed, and Antilochus saw him produce a small, wallet sized picture - a family of three. “He sent me a picture. Me and my parents. I’d half forgotten what my mother looked like. Once… once, a gesture like that… I would’ve been a puddle, melted. Now I’m just…” Patroclus looked dazed. “I dunno. Grateful? Glad? Pelides could make someone happy - could make someone overcome, ecstatic. It’ll be plain as day, when he sees me again.”

Antilochus had come to like Patroclus. Patroclus always seemed to be thinking something, and he was surprisingly candid. Antilochus kept him out of trouble, and Patroclus seemed to be content to keep him entertained - with thoughts and stories and blowjobs.

“What you and Pelides had - was it just like this?” Antilochus asked. “Like what we do?”

Patroclus tilted his head in thought. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “Yeah, it was just this.”

“Bullshit. C’mon, Patty Cakes - you don’t lie. Why start now?”

“It was the same,” Patroclus said flatly. “We talked and fucked around.”

“Did it feel the same? I used to talk and fuck around with Pelides. I never worried he had feelings for me - it was real clear he didn’t. Pelides never wrote me desperate little letters, and Pelides didn’t bankroll my defence neither, but he’s paying me to keep a watch out on you. It’s not the fucking same and you know it,” Antilochus snapped.

Patroclus blinked back at Antilochus. “I can’t help that he writes ‘desperate little letters’. I’m embarrassed for him -”

“You keep them! You keep all of them, you fucking idiot,” Antilochus cried. “Be honest - when you were fucking around with Pelides, did it feel like this?”

“No,” Patroclus admitted. “No. It’s… it was different. But it wasn’t…” Patroclus glanced back down at the picture, and Antilochus gave it a once over. Patroclus looked around ten or twelve in the picture, so it was a while before Andy started touching him up. They looked like a family, Antilochus thought. Not a particularly happy one, but looking at the photo, you wouldn’t imagine that in just a few years, the mother would be dead and the son in prison for her murder. “I know what it’s meant to feel like, Ant. And it doesn’t… I can’t.”

Patroclus had been drunk, when he told Antilochus about Andy and the ‘murders’. He had rambled and babbled and even laughed about the absurdity of it all, and Antilochus had laughed too.

_ I loved him,  _ Patroclus had slurred.  _ Andy. I loved him. _

Patroclus had laughed and laughed and it sounded like sobbing, and Antilochus had felt sick. 

_ Love shouldn’t feel like that,  _ Antilochus wanted to say. But instead he said, “Maybe you can’t help what you feel, Pat. But you can write some shit down on a scrap of paper and maybe make Pelides feel less like an idiot. You could do that.”

“Alright,” Patroclus muttered. “Alright.”

* * *

_ Dear Achilles, _

_ Every time you write, I almost write back. Sometimes I do – I start scrawling something out – but I don’t want to encourage you. Truth is, I was holding out for you to end Briseis’s retainer. You’re at college, surrounded by normal, whole people. I can’t understand it. But we’re one week out from the hearing, so I guess you’ve stuck to your guns, so I may as well write you something. _

_ Briseis is almost too sweet to be a lawyer. She cares. She’s tough, but if things go wrong next week, I think she’ll be more cut up than either of us. She noticed when things were sketchy awhile back – a couple of guys were fucking around with me for a few weeks. It wasn’t so bad, so I didn’t really do anything to stop it, but then Ant came in and broke all that up. I dunno why I let it happen. I think it’s the boredom, a bit. I didn’t like it, but I got a kick out of the anticipation – knowing something would happen, even if it was something bad. Have a tattoo as a souvenir. You won’t like it. _

_ Your friend Ant’s been nice to me too. He won’t fuck me, but we mess around. I thought I should tell you that. He worships you, you know. I think he won’t fuck me out of loyalty, but I bet he only wants to because he knows you have. Kinda funny. He tells me things about you from when you were kids. I enjoy that. He’s easy to talk to – I told him everything. It hurt, telling you things. I don’t know why it felt different – maybe it mattered more, with you. I’ve told him why I’m in, what really happened. Only recently, I described sucking Clyde’s dad’s cock, easy as anything. He didn’t care – he laughed when I laughed, rolled his eyes, cussed him out.  _

_ I’d be grateful if you didn’t come to the hearing. I know you know everything, but we’re going to be talking about me being pimped out to a middle aged man at fourteen. Briseis says my dad will admit he suspected Andy was interested in me. You know, I didn’t figure that at the time? Andy would come over to talk business with my dad, and at some point he would say he needed to use the bathroom, but really he’d use me, and Dad suspected it, played it to his advantage. And then, of course, we’ll be discussing my mother’s mental health issues. I hope you understand – it’s not that I’m not grateful. _

_ I know you’ve seen worse; you saw me after Ajax and Hector. You know about Tony and the rest. It’s like how things can be easy with Ant, but not with you. I can’t explain it. I think maybe it’s easy when you know what people want from you. I don’t know what you want. Sometimes I think I do, and I’m certain I can’t give it to you – but I want to.  _

_ I miss you. I think about you.  _

_ I don’t know what I’ll do if they let me out, next week. It’s like a glitch in my brain – I try to form an idea, a plan, and it evaporates quick as it came. I know I’ll do whatever you ask. I want to.  _

_ If nothing comes of it, it was kind of you to try. _

_ Yours, _

_ Patroclus _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Again, this was written in a bit of a haze, so let me know if there are mistakes.
> 
> Comments really mean the world to me, so if you have time, I value your feedback <3


	9. Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have reached the end. No one wants a long author's note at the beginning, so I'll hit you with my gratitude at the end.

Reporters swarmed Patroclus as he stepped into the dazzling light of the late afternoon sun. Patroclus suspected they were going easy on him – everyone spoke one at a time, waited their turn. They seemed pleased for him and sorry for him, and maybe just a little afraid of him; innocent or not, Patroclus had been in prison for seven years – who knew how he would react?

“Patroclus, this must be a pretty good feeling?”

Patroclus stared out at the front of the court – the twenty or so cement steps down to freedom. It made him feel faint. Someone could push him, and he would die just the same as Clyde and his mom (and if the fall didn’t kill him, the irony would). Suddenly the four walls of his cell at TRC seemed comforting. Briseis stood by his side and squeezed his shoulder.

“I… I brought a book from the prison library,” he heard himself say. “I don’t know how I’ll return it.” They teetered, and Patroclus swallowed. “I’m relieved. Afraid, but… happy.”

Happy wasn’t the word, but the reporters wanted him to be happy, and Patroclus wished he could be, for them.

“What’s the first thing you’ll do, now you’re out?” a man asked eagerly.

Patroclus frowned. It wasn’t fair on the reporters, really. They were used to family members who had long championed their loved ones’ innocence standing in a huddle of solidarity, brimming with hopes and plans. Patroclus’s father had done more than he would have asked simply in giving testimony, and Achilles had honoured his wishes in not coming. Patroclus turned to Briseis, and she mouthed a word – _Coffee_.

“Coffee,” Patroclus said, and again they all laughed. “And food. Real food.”

Patroclus was relieved when the press left with little fuss. He was glad that Briseis didn’t leave him.

“Thank you,” Patroclus murmured, shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “For everything, and for staying.”

Once they started transporting him for the hearings, Patroclus was surprised to see that it wasn’t Briseis speaking for him, but a barrister named Machaon ( _Solicitors do all the ground work, barristers take all the glory,_ she had joked good-naturedly). Briseis had simply sat by his side, making notes and occasionally squeezing his hand. Patroclus understood that it was a lawyer technique, to appear close to the client – Briseis had even said so. But it didn’t feel like that, with them. It felt like Briseis cared for him.

Briseis looked down and smiled at the ground, always humble. “I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you I would have stayed regardless, but Achilles pays me well. They’ll probably still assign you a social worker, but Achilles has the impression you trust me, so he wants me to… to help you with this next part.”

“This next part…” The rest of his life.

“Come. Lawyers know where to find coffee.”

They walked a few blocks, Briseis in her heels, Patroclus in the appallingly expensive suit Achilles had bought him. Eventually they settled in a quiet Vietnamese café. It was a peculiar sensation – being free in open space. Patroclus imagined maybe he should run until he couldn’t breathe, but he found he didn’t want to. Instead, he shoehorned himself into a cramped table for two.

“So, Achilles has an interest in you,” Briseis began after they ordered. Patroclus nodded. “And he pays me and some other people. But he doesn’t own you.”

“Okay.”

“Achilles won’t send anyone after you if you walk out the door. That’s what he tells me. He said to make sure I impress upon you the fact that you don’t owe him anything.”

“He said that?”

“All but wrote me cue cards.” Briseis grinned. “I halfway believe him. Not sure I buy that he’ll leave you alone – wouldn’t put it past him to send flowers and chocolate, but it won’t be goons, is the thing.” Briseis sighed, and rustled through her bag to pluck out a document. “He’s booked the penthouse of a Ritz-Carlton for you for the month.” Briseis handed him a large orange envelope containing the details, along with a phone Patroclus wouldn’t even know how to turn on. “If you’d like, he can be there. He wants to be there, but if you don’t want him, the booking is still yours.”

Patroclus blanched. “I… It’s too much.”

Briseis sighed as their coffee orders landed on the table. “I told him it might be. There’s a third option. Achilles won’t like it, but I’d put you up as long as you need until you get back on your feet. Being in the system from fifteen… I would be glad to help.”

Patroclus imagined it. Maybe he would sleep on Briseis’s couch. He didn’t deserve more than a couch. Usually he imagined maybe a shelter, or the unspoken fourth option. A hotel room would be too much – the mattress would be too soft, the pillows too fluffy. It would be too peaceful.

Patroclus stared into the depths of his coffee. “I was only his boy,” he mumbled. “We fucked around. I don’t know why…” He shrugged aimlessly. “I don’t get it.”

“Are you afraid he’ll want you to be his boy even now that you’re out?” Briseis asked quietly, her dark eyes trained on him imploringly.

Patroclus laughed, shaking his head. “No. Just the opposite.” Patroclus took a sip of coffee. He had never tasted real coffee – only ever the instant kind they could get from commissary. What Briseis had ordered for him was rich and milky and different. Patroclus’s tongue had imagined the bitter, watery taste of prison coffee, and this was better, but it was all wrong. “I feel as if I’ve tricked everyone,” Patroclus admitted. “Parallel to that first trial, there was a second, secret judgment. I was found guilty of being the type of person who could be blamed for two murders. I was found guilty of being a kid whose daddy hated him. A kid who sucked the mayor’s cock and got pushed around at home and by other boys. I was found guilty of being a little cocksucker who stammered in court, and whose teachers – even the ones he got along with – admitted was quiet, and unsettling – maybe the type who’d shoot up a school or kill his mother. That judgment got passed on, and Tony understood it, and guys in prison understood it, and… and even if I didn’t murder anyone, nothing can overturn that judgment. I think Achilles would want to. I think Achilles wishes we could appeal it, but we can’t, and it’s a life sentence.” At TRC, most things were nailed down. As Patroclus drew in long, purposeful breaths, he became hyperaware that he could throw the table across the room and send the chairs crashing through the window of the café. It might get him back to TRC. “A person found guilty of that – of being what I was and am – makes for an okay boy, but not much else, Briseis. If Achilles told me he wanted me to pay a debt by letting him fuck me till he got bored, I wouldn’t have anything to think about. As it is… I don’t know.”

“Those things… Patroclus, those things happened _to_ you. You were a kid –”

“Achilles would’ve been okay. In my shoes, most other people would’ve found a way out. You would have.” Patroclus loosened his tie and undid his top button in the hopes it might make breathing easier.

 _A perfect storm,_ Machaon had called it in the courtroom. That Patroclus’s father was indifferent to him and his mother too afraid and unwell to stand up for him. That Andy was able to get close to him, and was mayor and influential and had a son his age. That Clyde took it out on Patroclus at school and pushed him around. That they had fought near a slope. That there were rocks at the bottom…

But the storm would not have been perfect if Patroclus hadn’t been so weak. He often wondered what would have happened had he pushed Andy away that first time (or any other time, for that matter). Patroclus had been stupid and desperate and needy, and that had perfected the storm, and that was what Machaon had ended up saying, more or less ( _Patroclus Menoitiades was a particularly vulnerable young man…_ ).

Briseis looked at him sadly from across the table. “Your name is clear. Patroclus… By all accounts, _Pelides_ was heading up a high level drug trafficking operation and probably killed some people before he got caught, and even then he barely served the minimum for possession. If anything, you’re too good to be with him.”

“That’s crazy,” Patroclus said to the table.

Briseis exhaled heavily. “I guess by your logic, Pelides being the type who can get away with murder is a virtue, but I promise it isn’t. He sees something in you, and I see it too. A goodness. We want to help you. He has money, but even if you weren’t comfortable accepting his offerings, I could get you in contact with the right people.”

“No…” Patroclus whispered. He didn’t know which part he was refusing exactly – that two good people might like him, or the help they offered. “Where’s Achilles?” he asked suddenly.

“Please give it some thought –”

“Is he here?” Patroclus asked, now sitting up straight, glancing about the empty café.

“He’s nearby. If I call him, he’ll come. _Or_ ,” she said emphatically, “I call him, and tell him you want time.”

Briseis looked like a woman, then, and not a lawyer. There was something defective in her that made her fond of Patroclus – something awful. Some predisposition for pity or a misguided sense of duty made her eyes shine with hope and patience and kindness. She had hugged Patroclus, at the hearing. He had felt her body against his, and it occurred to him that he couldn’t remember ever being held by a woman aside from his mother, and that it felt good. He had been fourteen when Clyde’s dad decided he was a fag, but it occurred to him that maybe he could love a woman.

Briseis smelled better than anyone he had ever met, and sometimes Patroclus thought he saw her blush or glance away – the whisper of a love Patroclus had never imagined might be an option for him. Briseis couldn’t hurt him. She was strong in a thousand other ways, but she wouldn’t hit him or fuck him so it hurt the next day. Even if he asked her to, she probably wouldn’t. Briseis offered more than just her couch – she was offering him her home and a place in her life.

Briseis was someone who could love Patroclus beautifully, and Patroclus felt sick at the thought.

“Call him,” Patroclus mumbled. He looked up at her and saw her disappointment. “He’ll take care of me,” he reassured her. “He hired you, didn’t he?”

She frowned. “Even if… The second I read your casefile – I would have done it for free,” she said quickly. And she would have said more, but Patroclus interceded.

“I didn’t mean that. He found someone smart and kind to handle my case. And he’s been good about me not writing him back, and not coming to the hearing. I owe him a month, if not my life.”

“Except you don’t.”

“Except I do.” Patroclus sipped his coffee and glanced at Briseis’s phone. “I like him,” he confessed. “He likes me. He’s nice to me. I don’t think he’s helped me just because I was his boy,” Patroclus rambled. “He wants things I can’t… I think he wants something I can’t give, but I know he likes things that I _can_ give. It makes it easier – that he’s not doing it just out of niceness or pity or whatever; he’s doing it because he feels like it. You know?”

Briseis took a deep breath. “I think I understand.”

She placed the call, and Patroclus stared out the window, waiting for Achilles.

* * *

Achilles was different outside of TRC. He wore layers of designer clothes – cable knit sweaters and chinos and pristine leather shoes. His hair was longer, and he had lost just a little of his prison bulk. He looked like a rich boy from college, and Patroclus, even in a suit, looked like a thug.

The drive to the hotel was quiet. Briseis had held Patroclus tight, insisted that he call for anything he might need – as a client or a friend, she would be there. Achilles had watched him from the driver’s seat with impatience.

“Patroclus,” he said, and Patroclus quickly kissed Briseis on the cheek (it seemed like something grownups did, he wasn’t sure) and sat himself down in Achilles’s rented BMW. “Don’t I get one of those?”

It took Patroclus a moment to register he meant a hug, and he quickly leaned across the console and melted his body into Achilles. Achilles smelled like expensive cologne, now. “Thank you. It’s not enough, but thank you.”

“I wish you had’ve replied to my letters or fucking called me,” Achilles began.

“I –”

“I know. I know – I just…” Achilles sighed, raking a hand through his golden curls. “Ant took good care of you?”

“Yes,” Patroclus supplied. “Thank you, for Ant. And Briseis.”

“Do you like them more than me?” Achilles asked suddenly.

That peculiar possessiveness – that flare of selfishness which had seen Hector and Agamemnon and Ajax and Tony go down. Patroclus felt himself relax a little. “No.”

“Because you don’t have to –”

“Briseis said all that. I want to, Pelides.”

They didn’t speak much more than that. Patroclus filled Achilles in on TRC politics – who was supplying the drugs now that Achilles was out, who fucked who. Achilles checked them into the hotel with little fuss.

“I bought some clothes for you,” Achilles said, stroking the shoulder of Patroclus’s suit as they stood in the elevator. “But we can go shopping later so you can pick things for yourself.”

“I’m sure whatever you picked is good.”

Achilles rolled his eyes. “I dress like an asshole. I have a hunch you don’t.”

“You’ve only ever seen me dressed as a murderer,” Patroclus said with a small grin, and Achilles laughed as he unlocked their room.

“Resist buying an orange jumpsuit.”

The room was too much. It was absurd in its spaciousness – the high ceilings, the enormous windows facing the sea. Patroclus expected to feel a chill, but the suite was perfectly temperate.

“I hate hotels,” Achilles began, his tone almost apologetic. “I like having a place to myself, and hotels never feel like that, but I wanted to start somewhere neutral. And my apartment only has a small bathtub. The first thing I wanted was a bath when I got out, so I thought… But I understand if you don’t want that.”

“I’d like that,” Patroclus agreed. “Would you come in with me?”

“If it’s alright,” Achilles said.

“I’d like you to.”

Achilles occupied himself with running the bath and making tea and arranging roomservice, and Patroclus sat himself down on the floor and stared out the window intently. It was an overcast day. Patroclus felt a fondness, imagining how Achilles had probably hoped for sunny skies and beaches. There was something melancholy about grey skies and black tides.

“You wanna change out of the suit? Maybe we’ll burn it, huh?” Achilles called from across the room.

“No point changing – bath’ll be full soon.”

Achilles frowned. “Could you… Look, could you get up off the ground and stop looking as if you wanna jump? Please.”

Patroclus picked himself up. “I’ll hop in the bath.”

“Alright,” Achilles agreed. “I’ll be there soon.”

* * *

When Achilles joined him, an embarrassed bellhop followed after him with far too many dishes. “Sorry,” Achilles said, perhaps both to Patroclus and the boy. “I wasn’t sure what to get.”

Patroclus watched as the poor boy set down a steak, a plate of chips and nuggets that looked to be from a kids’ menu, salmon, pasta and waffles, as well as a bottle of champagne. Achilles tipped generously, and Patroclus was glad of that.

“That poor –”

“The tattoo,” Achilles said sharply.

Patroclus glanced down at his right shoulder and grimaced. “Told you you wouldn’t like it,” he murmured. On his right shoulder, in truly the shittiest of prison ink, it said ‘BiTCH’ for all the world to see (or at least, for Achilles and the bell boy to see). “Really nailed it with the lower case ‘i’.”

Achilles crouched down next to the bath and thumbed over the offending tattoo, as if it might simply wash off. “How the fuck…?”

“That couple of weeks. They gave me something… I was passed out, or just about.” Patroclus shrugged, but it occurred to him that although he had been a good fit as a boy in TRC, maybe he wasn’t fit to be a whore at the Ritz-Carlton. “Sorry. I should’ve been more careful.”

“You thought about getting a coverup? Or removal?” Achilles asked, still grasping Patroclus’s shoulder too tightly.

Truthfully, Patroclus hadn’t thought much about anything. “A coverup, maybe. If you don’t like it.”

“Fucking do _you_ like it?” Achilles asked in disbelief.

If no one was going to see his body, Patroclus probably would have left it – he had laughed and laughed when he awoke to find it in all its infected glory the morning after. Once Ant had become his protector, he had truly considered the tattoo oddly funny – Ant had once playfully used a pen to alter it to read ‘ANT’S BiTCH’. But if Achilles had his body, then he wanted it hidden. Patroclus wanted Achilles to like his body.

“No. No, you’re right. I’ll get it covered up. You gonna get in?”

Achilles undressed and sank into the bath. He was hard.

“You’re… Do you want me to…?” Patroclus placed a hand on Achilles’s hip and leaned into him.

Achilles swallowed, looking away. “You know that’s… that’s not why I…”

“No,” Patroclus agreed. “But I’m up for it.”

Achilles shook his head. “I don’t want you just to… I imagined this. All the time. And it was easy, but it’s not, and I don’t just want… I want you to feel free,” Achilles said tiredly. “I want you to understand that you don’t have to… to fucking feel obligated.” Achilles looked at him a long time. “You should eat.”

“Alright.”

“The nuggets?” Achilles laughed.

Patroclus shrugged. “You ordered them.” They sometimes served nuggets at TRC. Ritz-Carlton nuggets were better – tasted more like chicken, less like dust.

Achilles rolled his eyes, but there was something heavy in his silence. “I don’t want you to run away,” he admitted. “I want you to be free and to have options, but I want you to choose me, and I don’t know how to handle that, because at TRC, I was hands down the best option, but maybe if Ant had been there or… and seeing you with Briseis… You have good options, now.”

Patroclus set down the nuggets and broke off a piece of waffle. “When you asked me to tell you about the murders, you said it was because you’re selfish, not generous.”

Achilles flushed. “I…”

“Ant’ll settle with a girl, after his stint. He has a thing for you, but I’d say he’s mostly straight. And Briseis… she’s all generosity. I think she’s wonderful and beautiful and strong, but I can’t stand it. I can’t stand love from generosity. I can’t accept it, I can’t… It makes me feel bad,” he said lamely. “Does liking me make you feel good?”

Achilles’s face softened. “I promise you, Patroclus, I love you selfishly,” he said gently. “Loving you makes me feel powerful and understood.”

Patroclus nodded. “I…” He felt dizzy, and submerged his head beneath the hot water until he felt normal.

“You don’t like it,” Achilles sighed as Patroclus’s head reemerged. “I think about it – I’ve tried to put it into other words, and I will if you like, but on the whole, what I feel for you is love, I think.”

“Powerful… Pelides –”

“Achilles.”

“Achilles, your feelings for me… don’t you think I’m more a liability?”

Achilles considered this. “Do you think so?”

“Yes,” Patroclus admitted.

“My parents love no one except me, maybe,” Achilles said. He knelt up and twisted the crank of the window so a cool breeze disrupted the sweltering heat of the tub. “They thought it made them powerful – being hard and alone. I disagree. Witnessing grown-ups be so frightened of their own feelings… It seemed sad, to me. When Ajax couldn’t stand the press of your lips… How weak. Even when I asked you to be my boy… I saw you, and I thought you were beautiful and interesting, and the thought of telling you that was terrifying, at first. I feel stronger, now; I feel powerful when I tell you that I think you are beautiful and interesting, and that I love you, because it’s what I feel, and I’m not scared of it.” Achilles smiled a little, his face golden and at peace. “You can break my heart. And I desperately don’t want you to, and if you do, I’ll be a fucking mess of desperation with all the decorum of a pissy toddler. But it’s better that, than me angry-wanking over you while you rot away at TRC.”

“I don’t want to,” Patroclus murmured. “Break your… I don’t want to, but I… I don’t know if I can…” Patroclus swallowed. “Do you remember the day we met – how you asked me to list every cock I’d –”

“I’m sorry,” Achilles said quickly.

“No. No, I just… I did. I listed them. And I try to tell you everything – anything you ask, I try to tell you… And I hope you’ll understand, that you’ll see – like performing an autopsy on myself while I’m still alive, and still I worry you don’t see…” Patroclus shook his head. He remembered his mother’s doubt – _Do you understand?_ _Ты_ _понимаешь_ _?_ “I worry that no matter what I tell you, you can’t know me. I worry that there are memories and thoughts that I… I can lay them out, but I can’t touch them – they burn, and I don’t know if the burn is hate or anger or sadness or just… just pain, but I feel it in me, searing.”

“Clyde’s dad…” Achilles’s face tightened, and it occurred to Patroclus that they had never discussed it, just the two of them. Patroclus had confessed to it, and left Achilles to put it all together. “He hurt you.”

“No,” Patroclus said hollowly on instinct. Patroclus laughed. “Sorry. I imagined Briseis was telling you everything.”

“Only the essentials – how it directly impacted the case.” Achilles waited a while, before shrugging. “Sorry. I shouldn’t’ve brought it up.”

Patroclus closed his eyes. Memories of Andy weren’t so much images as they were feelings, and speaking them was like gagging on hot coal. “Andy didn’t hurt me, really. He smacked me a time or two to correct me, pulled my hair a bit – but I was in prison seven years. Ajax got me more the one time than Andy did over a few months, and Tony…” Patroclus coughed. “I was in love with him,” Patroclus admitted. “Andy.” Patroclus regretted saying his name. Briseis had always been clinical about it – always called him ‘Mr Opus’ or ‘Andrew Opus’. In court, it was only Patroclus and Eliza that called him ‘Andy’ – the two fools who had loved him. “It felt good at the time. Never felt powerful, though. I knew it made me worse, but it made me feel better.”

Achilles took a few breaths and Patroclus saw his jaw clenching and unclenching.

“It was years ago,” Patroclus said.

Achilles nodded slowly. “I… I do therapy now. I see someone. I thought I was fine at TRC, but the goal there was to survive, and that’s what I was doing. Surprised me how much baggage I have.” Achilles looked at Patroclus. “He hurt you. He did. And other people hurt you. And me – I did too. The things searing your insides… I think someone could help you take a closer look.”

“It’s hard to imagine you in therapy,” Patroclus said, an obvious deflection that made Achilles roll his eyes.

“It’s fashionable; all the rich people are doing it.”

A silence followed. Achilles had paid Patroclus’s legal fees and booked a hotel room and wanted to get him a therapist and into college and it was too much. Patroclus felt a wave of his old panic threaten to flood his body.

But they were content, for the moment. Achilles wanted Patroclus selfishly, and Patroclus felt warm and lighter than he had in years. Achilles loved him, and wasn’t asking for Patroclus’s love in return, and just for now, everything could be okay.

Patroclus remembered how softly and sweetly he had once kissed Ajax (had it really been more than a year ago?), and how predictable the whole thing had been; Ajax, with his strong fists, was weak. Achilles, with his hopeless feelings, was strong.

Patroclus rose onto his knees and leaned across the water to press his lips tenderly against Achilles’s.

“What are you thinking about?” Achilles asked, his voice a gentle nudge.

Patroclus let himself smile fondly. “Blowing you.”

* * *

They lay in the bath a long while, though Achilles resisted Patroclus’s occasional offers of sex. Instead they murmured all the things that had ruled their lives as afterthoughts.

About college.

About the hearings.

About what Achilles had done about Markus Menoitiades.

“I didn’t kill him,” Achilles offered as they got out of the bathtub and toweled themselves dry.

“Briseis didn’t seem to know what you did,” Patroclus said.

“Briseis didn’t need to know,” Achilles replied. Patroclus’s face fell blank, and Achilles remembered how awful it felt when Patroclus closed himself off. He remembered too the explosions of pleasure the press of Patroclus’s lips had brought him in the bath. Achilles sighed. “She didn’t need to know, but you do. I packed you clothes – get dressed and I’ll make some tea, and I’ll tell you what I did about your dad.”

And they did just that. Patroclus sat in the pajamas Achilles had packed him a month in advance and listened to a tale of dark web contracts and planting evidence and paying off officers.

“I thought it would be ironic and shit if it was child porn. And you know – a good incentive. But maybe that was shitty – I don’t know.” Achilles winced. “And I had guys watching your dad – we knew he was moving a lot of heroin, so I chose my moment. Didn’t want him copping a few years for some dimebags – I wanted him to hurt.” Achilles hesitated. When he had arranged it all, it had felt like playing chess. Perhaps he had been heartless…“You weren’t answering my letters or taking my calls or visits –”

“Thank you,” Patroclus said quietly. “I’m grateful.”

“No. No, Pat, not with the gratitude. Fuck –”

“I am. No one else would have done that for me. Not even Briseis – she would have fought with everything she had, but she would have fought fair, and we might have lost. I feel safer, being out while he isn’t.” Patroclus sipped his tea and closed his eyes, sinking into the plush of the sofa. “You’re quieter than I remember,” Patroclus remarked after a few minutes of silence. “You always had questions, before. I don’t suppose there’s so much mystery, now.”

He said it, Achilles thought, with a hint of resentment. “You aren’t my boy anymore. You’re someone I love. I want you to want to tell me things, sometimes. I want you to choose what you tell me. I was ready for you to never talk to me again – as ready as I could be.”

Patroclus grinned a little. “You wouldn’t force me to take your visits, your letters…” Paroclus threw his had back and laughed, before standing up abruptly and wandering into the bedroom. Achilles almost made to follow when Patroclus reappeared with a bundle of letters and placed them unceremoniously on Achilles's lap. “Your letters.”

For a moment, Achilles couldn’t bring himself to touch them. “Did you… did you read them?” he asked, fingering the wad of envelopes.

“Yes,” Patroclus said, his voice harsh. “All of them are open. I read them _all_ a hundred times. I wrinkled them, checked no one had taken them from where I stashed them five times a day. I found myself waiting for them. I…” Patroclus blanched. “Shit.”

He watched Achilles, the wildness that had taken ahold of him dissipating. He reached out as if to take the letters back, before retracting his hand.

“Do you want me to keep them?” Achilles asked tentatively.

“I don’t know,” Patroclus whispered. “Sometimes I want to burn them, sometimes I can’t sleep until I’ve read them all through. I don’t know.”

“That’s alright. There’s a safe in the room – why don’t we keep them there until you’re sure?” Achilles suggested.

Achilles watched Patroclus’s Adam’s apple bob. “Sorry. I… Yeah. Yeah, the safe…” He swallowed again and closed his eyes. “Is it stupid if I change my name to Patroclus Lebedev? I couldn’t before – not when everyone thought I killed her. But now…” Patroclus shrugged unsteadily, his eyes darting around the room before settling back on the letters in Achilles’s lap.

_I hope you’ll understand, that you’ll see – like performing an autopsy on myself while I’m still alive, and still I worry you don’t see…_

“I think that’s a good idea,” Achilles said.

“I –” Patroclus began, but Achilles stopped him.

“I bought you a wardrobe and booked a hotel room and a car before your father even took the stand. I cleared out my cupboard space at my apartment so there would be room for you to keep me from thinking about the hearings. There are college brochures on the dining room table and a spare set of keys. And I know that it's all... it's _fucking insane_ – I know that. That’s how I handled this situation. You left TRC with a library book and a bundle of letters you wouldn’t reply to because you didn’t want to let yourself believe this was real. We’ve approached this differently. Take your time. We have time – even out here.”

Patroclus nodded, looking passed Achilles through the window at the waves.

“When I booked this place, I wanted the beach view for you – the postcard sun and sand,” Achilles admitted.

“I know,” Patroclus said, his gaze far away.

“I’ll put these in the safe.” Achilles took the bundle of letters and locked them away, leaving Patroclus to think in peace. When Achilles eventually went to bed, Patroclus still sat in his silence, watching through the window. Achilles hoped that maybe Patroclus would still be there in the morning.

* * *

“You’re always sitting on the ground,” Achilles said tiredly, folding himself down to sit beside Patroclus. Achilles had seemed fearless, at TRC; in control, unconcerned. Patroclus had expected him to be the same way outside, but there were small differences. Achilles on the outside was peaceful and reactive, riding the waves as they rushed toward him. Stumbling to greet Patroclus in a pair of pajama bottoms and sleep tousled hair at three in the morning, Achilles seemed all too human. “Can’t sleep?”

Patroclus nodded.

“Figures. I couldn’t either when I got out.”

“I woke you,” Patroclus said in a low voice. He gestured at the mess of letters strewn by his feet. “Must have, when I opened the safe. Sorry. I know it’s late.”

Patroclus gazed out the window intently. Although it was dark, the water caught the moonlight as the tide drew in and out.

“You like the beach?” Achilles asked quietly.

“Yeah.” Patroclus pressed the palm of his hand against the cool of the glass.

“We could go there now,” Achilles murmured. “Nothing stopping us.”

Patroclus considered it – imagined the punishing cold of the water, the chill of the breeze on his skin.

 _My love was an ocean, Achilles,_ Patroclus thought, the phrase dancing on his lips, expanding in his lungs, threatening to escape. _It was endless and wild and uncontrollable._

“No,” Patroclus said softly.

Achilles didn’t feel like Andy. Patroclus would have done anything for Andy, just about. His mind went to mush, his body thrilled with fear and nervousness and excitement, his cheeks flushed. Patroclus had been Achilles’s ‘boy’ in name at TRC, but it hadn’t compared to how Andy had owned him, made him powerless.

Patroclus could leave Achilles; he had, once. Leaving Andy had seemed impossible. Patroclus had thought of it, but Andy’s blue eyes drew him in to their depths, kept his head underwater. Patroclus didn’t lose all power of thought around Achilles. Patroclus had teased Achilles, on occasion. Sometimes, he had even lashed out at him (something he would never have contemplated with Andy). Patroclus could leave Achilles, but he didn’t want to.

Patroclus swallowed. “No,” he said again. “I wouldn’t want to. It would be cold.” Patroclus looked back out the window at the tides. Love like that was glorious and all-consuming and fodder for poets, but Patroclus was glad for the pane of glass that shielded him from the elements – that muted the world and kept him warm and comfortable and safe.

“Well, we can if you feel like it,” Achilles yawned. “Or if you wanna drive, or you know… whatever.”

 _My love was an ocean, Achilles._ _It was endless and wild and uncontrollable. I let it drag me out to sea, and I lived there till I drowned,_ Patroclus cried out in his mind, the voice louder this time. _And Andy didn’t deserve it, but he drained it out of me and left you with…_

“I liked…” Patroclus’s voice caught in his throat. “I liked the bath,” he whispered.

Patroclus remembered lying sprawled out on the mayor’s desk, feeling like a secret. _Do you love me, Patroclus?_

Patroclus remembered eating birthday cake in the bathroom at juvie. _Do you love me, Patroclus?_

Andy had been quietly pleased. Tony had been a little disappointed. These moments that had been so pivotal for Patroclus were, he realized, meaningless. If Patroclus had said ‘no’ to Andy, Andy still would have grinned that dashing grin and unzipped his fly just the same. Patroclus might have said ‘yes’ to Tony, and Tony still would have fucked him in the stalls and let them ship him off to a men’s facility at eighteen. Patroclus had been swept up in love and grieved its loss, and it occurred to him that no one at all had cared one way or another.

“Baths are warm,” Patroclus muttered. “I liked it. You… you like them too?”

Achilles frowned a little, as if trying to trace the genus of the conversation. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Patroclus closed his eyes. He remembered the warm comfort of the water. He remembered Achilles’s green eyes on him as they lay idle and serene. A window ajar, letting a gentle breeze in. Easy.

“It’s not… it’s not an ocean,” Patroclus mumbled. “It’s not… I…”

Patroclus remembered how his heart had hammered at the zoo when Andy ‘realised’ he was only fourteen. What he imagined giving Andy to make it up to him; anything. Everything.

Patroclus remembered how Achilles gazed down at him, flushed and fond as he took Patroclus’s cock the first time - _I wish I had’ve been better with you…_

“It’s not an – an ocean. It isn’t…” Patroclus stammered. “A bath… it’s… Maybe it’s…”

Achilles cocked his head to the side. “Do you… want me to run another bath?”

“Maybe it’s not enough,” Patroclus said almost to himself, but he looked Achilles in the eye. “But it’s… it’s more. It’s good.”

“Patroclus?”

“I loved Andy. I… like an ocean. Love… it was…” Patroclus stared at the black tides. “So much. I drowned in my love for him. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I’d’ve given him anything. I did. But…”

“You’re not thinking of… You can’t mean to –”

“No. No. I just… It’s not the same. I can’t… I don’t have it in me, to love you that way. He took it with him.” Patroclus felt his throat tighten like a noose. “Do you understand?” Patroclus thought of Mama, certain she couldn’t be understood. Patroclus wished he was in solitary – wished he could beat himself against the walls. “I can’t feel that way, anymore. I loved Andy. I had so much love for him, and he… Why isn’t it the same, for you?” Patroclus begged. “I hate that I can’t give you what I gave him. What I have left isn’t what you deserve, Achilles. Even if I give you all of it, everything…”

Achilles sat in the moonlight, his face pensive. Then, “I’m sorry if you feel like he’s taken something. But it wasn’t something I needed or wanted – love like that. Love a grown man might steal from a fourteen year old kid.” Achilles took Patroclus’s limp hand between both of his. “I’ve no doubt you loved him beautifully, Patroclus,” Achilles said softly. He spoke differently, outside of TRC. His words were gentler, more deliberate. In prison, there was a tendency to reach for the hardest, most direct words. “It’s okay that it’s not an ocean. I don’t want to watch you drown. If your love could be a warm bath shared with me – Patroclus, it’s more than I hoped for.”

Patroclus sat in silence a long while. He stared at the waves until his eyes shut of their own accord. He didn’t know if he was breathing. The world was silent and black and Patroclus needed it to be. He needed to settle the lump in his throat and the stinging in his eyes. He felt Achilles’s warm hands around his, and finally, Patroclus glanced up at him.

“More,” he rasped. Patroclus could give Achilles the ‘more’ he had asked for by the fence at TRC. He didn’t know if he could give Achilles enough of it. But he would try.

Patroclus crawled up onto his knees and moved to straddle Achilles.

“I wasn’t gonna…” Achilles murmured into his neck. “Your first night… I wasn’t gonna…”

Patroclus shuddered, before slipping his hand into Achilles’s pajama pants and stroking him.

It was different, sucking Achilles in a hotelroom. It was the first time Patroclus’s life that he didn’t have to be ashamed; he wasn’t afraid of being caught or hurt. He was a grown up, and Achilles liked him. Achilles _loved_ him, maybe, and for some reason he wanted Patroclus’s tattered affection.

“God,” Achilles gasped, his hands cradling Patroclus’s head. “No one… no one feels so good.”

Achilles moaned and rutted and surrendered to Patroclus, and Patroclus was glad to swallow him, to keep Achilles inside of him. Patroclus collapsed back, leaning his head against the cool of the window and taking in deep breaths.

“I missed that,” Achilles said breathlessly.

“I did too,” Patroclus admitted, his voice small and rough.

Patroclus felt Achilles’s gaze on him, his pupils blown out so only a sliver of green bordered his irises. “Are you… Do you know if you’re clean? Did you get tested before…?”

Patroclus nodded slowly, watched Achilles shiver, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

Achilles sat up and crawled the short distance to Patroclus. He placed a golden hand on Patroclus’s front. “Yes or no?”

Patroclus felt his lips curve into something resembling a smile. Achilles asking permission. It had seemed funny and embarrassing, in TRC; Patroclus was his to take. But even then, Patroclus knew he wasn’t powerless – even if Achilles didn’t ask, he never imagined Achilles would carry on with him if he said ‘no’.

“Yes,” Patroclus said eventually. When Achilles took him in his mouth, Patroclus’s body wasn’t lying. There were still bad feelings in Patroclus – that he was manipulative and bad, and that somehow Achilles couldn’t see. But Achilles craved his pleasure, and Patroclus wanted to give it to him, and it was a new and irresistible feeling for Patroclus to be wanted, and to want in return. To be loved, even.

“Achilles,” Patroclus murmured. “Pelides, I…” Achilles hummed happily, and Patroclus scrunched his eyes shut. “Achilles,” he warned. “Achilles…”

Achilles swallowed all of him as Patroclus cried out. Achilles sucked until his cock was clean and sat up beside Patroclus. “Thank you.”

Patroclus nodded dazedly. Achilles’s expression faltered, and Patroclus managed a tired smile. “That was… It was good.”

“Told you I was,” Achilles said, but there was a tenderness there.

The weight of the day was beginning to crash into Patroclus, and he yawned. Dawn was not far off, but there was nothing to keep them from sleeping in. They had time, Achilles had said, and for the first time in a long time that was a good thing.

“Do you wanna get up off the ground, now?” Achilles teased gently. “Come to bed with me?”

Patroclus let Achilles pull him to his feet and guide him back to bed, leaving the letters scattered across the floor; they would still be there tomorrow.

* * *

When Patroclus woke the next day, it was to the sound of a bath running, almost full.

“Alright,” he said to himself. “Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this fic. It really means a lot to me. It's a bit rough around the edges, but I'm pleased to have finished it and to have it out in the world. You have all been very kind to me - even about chapters I feel are a bit dry - and reading your comments is the highlight of my day. I have been so lucky to have wonderful readers.
> 
> If you've enjoyed this fic at all, I cannot overstate how much it means to receive comments (and kudoses) - I love hearing back from you! 
> 
> Until next time xx


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